


Strike at the Heart of

by sara_holmes



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, BAMF Clint Barton, Bucky as Yasha, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Clint Barton Feels, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Games, STRIKE!Clint, Trust Issues, unhealthy platonic relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10096724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_holmes/pseuds/sara_holmes
Summary: The Avengers think he's traumatised, Fury thinks he needs a break, Natasha wants him to recover. Well, screw those guys. Clint is going to go and make some new friends that appreciate how badass and competent and not-messed-up-after-Loki he is.It goes great, until it doesn't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a teeny tiny canon-divergent fic featuring Clint as part of the STRIKE team. It is still about Clint as part of the STRIKE team, but is not so teeny tiny.
> 
> I got paired up with the wonderful [cratercreator](http://cratercreator.tumblr.com/) and she drew [this](http://cratercreator.tumblr.com/post/157976260927/you-taught-me-that-there-is-such-a-thing-as) wonderful scene from the fic. I can't thank her enough - please do check it out and share some love!
> 
> Thank you to the darling [everyworldneedslove](http://everyworldneedslove.tumblr.com/) for hand-holding and cheering me on. You're the best.

When Clint rocks up at SHIELD headquarters with a coffee in one hand and a handwritten note vouching for his sanity signed by Thor in the other, Fury tells him not altogether politely  _ to go home, take a rest for a few months, for the love of god you were brainwashed, Barton. _

Clint does not go home and take a rest. Instead, he stages an impromptu protest by way of sitting on the suspended stairs in the atrium, sipping his coffee and swinging his legs where they dangle over the edge of the step. Several junior agents ask him to move, one intern even tries their luck, then Fury breaks out the big guns and sends Agent Hill to tell him to get lost.

“Go away,” she says bluntly. “You’re cluttering up the atrium.”

“I’m bored,” he replies, craning his neck up to look at her in all of her beautiful-disapproving glory. “You guys are the only people on the planet who will employ me.”

“You are on medical leave,” she says, coming to stand next to him, propping her elbows on the smooth chrome of the handrail, looking out over the atrium like a queen surveying her kingdom. 

“Thor says I’m okay,” Clint says. “I have a note.”

“You are not okay. Go home.”

Clint pulls a face at her. “Who put you in charge? I didn’t vote for you.” He peers down at a group of Agents gathered by the security desk, recognises a familiar face. “Hey, Sitwell!” he yells down, making nearly everyone in the vicinity look up at him. “Did you vote for Hill to be in charge?”

Sitwell looks up, straightening his glasses and looking supremely unconcerned at the sort-of-Avenger who is waving at him from the stairs. “No.”

“Power to the people,” Clint tells Hill. 

She gives him a look which he interprets as  _ ‘by god if you weren't on government premises I would strangle you,’  _ but then undermines it by walking away and snapping at him to follow, taking him all the way to Fury’s office. He follows her, trying not to look too pleased with himself. Considering that the first thing Fury says to him is  _ ‘wipe that shit-eating grin off your face,’  _ he probably fails. 

“You could be claiming the next year off of work and getting a hefty damages packet,” Fury tells him. “I thought you would jump at the chance.”

“Me?” Clint says, pressing a hand to his chest. “Sit around and do nothing?”

“Every time you have been called out on a mission in the last three years you have said how much you’d prefer to be sitting at home doing nothing.”

“Uh, new year, new me?”

“It’s March, Hawkeye.”

Clint shrugs, swallows the rest of his coffee and throws the empty cup across the room into the trash can, basketball style. “It’s never the wrong time of year to start a new you,” he says. “Please?”

Fury gives him the eyeball for a moment and then turns his head to look at Hill. “What did the psych evaluation come back with?”

“A three, a six and a red warning in two sections,” she says. “Cannot recommend Agent Barton for active duty.”

Clint scowls. “I have a note.”

Hill looks at Clint with her eyes slightly narrowed, sizing him up like she’s his tailor and is trying to gauge his measurements after he’s put on a load of Christmas-weight. “I’d recommend a six-month standby, in line with the evaluation.”

Fury nods. “There you go, Agent Barton,” he says, not unkindly but in the tone of voice that doesn’t invite discussion. “Take your time off. See you in six months and we’ll put you back in delta team.”

“Well, fuck you guys,” Clint says, standing up. “I’m going back to the Avengers.”

“The Avengers are a SHIELD sanctioned team,” Fury tells him. “We’ll be passing on our recommendations about your recovery time.”

“I’m going freelance.”

“Sure, if you want to be arrested as a vigilante,” Fury says, and leans forwards with his elbows on his desk. “Barton. Believe me - despite you being a monumental pain in my ass, I care about you very much. Take the time. Recover.”

“Why won’t you believe that I’m already recovered?” Clint demands. “Stop being such a dictator.”

“Agent,” Hill says sharply, and Clint scowls at her.

“What? I added tator.”

“Go home, Clint,” Fury says, sounding bored as he spins his chair back towards the window, and Clint knows that the conversation is over. “See you in six months.”

 

* * *

 

Not sensing many other options, Clint does as bid and leaves. He isn’t happy about it, and many other agents and secretaries and other SHIELD personnel give him wary looks as he stomps his way down to the basement levels. He’s not got a reputation as someone to be careful around - Natasha holds that title out of the pair of them - so he must be transmitting some pretty pissed-off vibes. 

He goes to empty his locker - not because he’s been told to, but out of bitterness and sheer spite. It feels oddly good to clear out the spare clothes and finger tabs and the wrist guard that he thought he’d lost, shoving them into a backpack and cursing under his breath.

That is, until a calm quiet voice calls his name and he turns around to find himself being observed by none other than the Director of SHIELD himself.

“Holy shit,” Clint says as he nearly jumps out of his skin. Then, when Alexander Pierce just stares at him, he attempts to backtrack and apologise for cursing at his boss’s boss. Maybe even his boss’s boss’s boss. he’s not sure exactly how much rank there is between him and Pierce.

“At ease, Agent,” Pierce says over his rambled attempt at _ ‘sorry for saying shit at you’ _ , sounding calm yet authoritative, style erring towards military. “I hear you’ve had a pretty rough day.”

“You fired me,” Clint says. “Well, Fury fired me.”

Pierce hums thoughtfully. “I thought you’d been given extended leave after New York? Suggested recuperation time?”

“I don’t  _ want _ any recuperation time,” Clint says, and wishes he could bang his head against his locker at just how petulant he sounds. “Sorry, Sir. Yeah, it’s been a rough day.” 

Pierce eyes him contemplatively, and then seems to make a decision. “Come on,” he says, slipping his hands into his pocket and tilting his head towards the door. “Let’s get you a coffee.”

* * *

 

 

Which is how Clint finds himself in a Starbucks in Washington, sat opposite the most powerful man in SHIELD, sipping a black coffee and feeling a little out of his depth. He’s spoken to Pierce maybe twice in his SHIELD-lifetime, and one of those was whilst he was on the wrong end of a disciplinary. Pierce seems okay, though. Calm and thoughtful and not quite as mysterious as Fury, though considering the guy leads an organisation of spies he’s probably shady as fuck under that businessman exterior.

They chat idly. About the Avengers, about the new training facility, about Clint’s bow. And then when there’s only dregs in the coffee cups, Pierce goes for the jugular.

“So, you’re not fit for active duty.”

Clint wishes he could get away with banging his head against the table. “I am,” he says. “Fury won’t listen to me.”

“Your psych evaluation says otherwise,” Pierce says, and Clint groans, hiding his face in his hands.

“I was brainwashed, I’m bound to be a bit screwy around the edges,” he says. “Thor said I’d be fine, that Loki didn’t damage anything permanent. Look, sitting on my ass and not doing anything is not going to help.”

“I know,” Pierce says, and wait, what? Clint lowers his hands, frowning.

“Wait, what?”

“I’m giving you a job,” Pierce says, unapologetic about undermining Nick Fury. “Messy work. Some black-ops. Some maybe even off the books. Under supervision, of course.”

“I’m in,” Clint says immediately.

Pierce smiles. “Congratulations, Hawkeye, you’ve just been demoted,” he says, reaching across to shake Clint’s hand. “Welcome back to STRIKE.”

 

* * *

 

Being demoted actually turns out to be both awful and great. 

Instead of a sideways shunt out of Delta and into Theta or Omega team, he gets dropped down a level to fill the empty gap in one of the STRIKE squads. It’s great, because it means not having to train one on one with a new partner and not having to fill in vast quantities of paperwork. Awful, because the STRIKE squad he’s assigned to hate him on sight for being  _ ‘one of those fancy Alpha teams that think they’re too good for ground-work.’ _ Nevermind that most people on STRIKE regularly request transfers onto the alpha-teams, but when Clint points this out during his orientation meeting, Rollins nearly punches him in the mouth.

Luckily, he’s saved from an ass-kicking by the current STRIKE leader, Brock Rumlow. He’s a no-nonsense figure who commands respect and doesn’t take any shit, and for some reason finds Clint amusing. It’s a lucky break, seeing as Rumlow is the one officially supervising Clint. 

Rumlow laughs at Clint’s admittedly poorly-pitched joke, a rough sound which instantly has the rest of the team backing down from openly hostile into discreetly pissed off. “Shit, Jack,” Rumlow says. “What would you rather have, an Avenger or some weak-ass army dropout?”

“I don’t think I’m better than you because I’ve been on Delta team,” Clint says. 

“But you think you’re better than us for other reasons, I’ll bet,” Stone adds snidely, all six-foot-six of his linebacker frame bristling.

“I’ve got better aim than you,” Clint says. “And I’m better looking than Rollins. I don’t know what else, yet.”

Rumlow laughs again, clapping Clint on the shoulder like they’re friends. Rollins just grunts and turns away, but some other members of the team are still looking at Clint like they want to pull him limb from limb. 

“Seven hundred hours,” Rumlow says to Clint, walking backwards towards the door and smiling. “Team training on basement level one. Bring your first aid-kit.”

“I will if you will,” Clint replies, and Rumlow’s grin turns wolf-like.

* * *

 

 

Rumlow liking him doesn’t extend to saving him from having his ass kicked during training. He holds his own for about an hour, but then it’s one against two with handheld batons and he ends up face-down on the mats, mouth bleeding and spine feeling like it’s been put out of alignment. Fuck. He’s not a super-soldier, dammit.

Rumlow is the one to pull him to his feet. Tells him to get up and keep going. Stands next to Clint with a baton in hand, staring down Martinez and Webster. They’re both small guys, but wiry strong and almost as fast as Clint is.

“Come on then,” Rumlow says, cocky, inviting. “Bring the pain.”

Clint spits out his mouthful of blood, flips his baton around in his hand and squares up next to him, ready.

* * *

 

 

It’s honestly so predictable and high-school-esque that Clint has to laugh. He gets his ass kicked and then the hostility from the rest of the team vanishes just like _that_. Now they’ve nearly knocked his teeth out and given him a good set of bruises, they stand shoulder to shoulder with him in the locker room, laughing and joking and clapping him on the back as they pass.

Clint has to hide a grin in his locker.  _ In your face, Fury, _ he thinks silently, and hits the showers.

* * *

 

 

Turns out, Fury is not impressed by Clint’s demotion.

“You’ve been put in STRIKE?” he demands over the phone, sounding as pissed off as Clint has ever heard him. “I thought I told you to take the time off.”

Clint rolls his eyes, holding a bag of frozen peas to his mouth and opening the fridge, phone clamped between his shoulder and ear. He pulls out a beer, shoves the door shut. “Yeah, then Pierce told me he needed me,” he says. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal, you are  _ not _ cleared for active duty,” Fury says.

“Says you,” Clint says, and he hangs up. “Jerkoff,” he mutters, and tosses his phone aside, opening his beer and taking a few generous swallows. He feels better than he has in weeks after his training with STRIKE, and he’s not about to let Fury ruin it for him-

Without warning, there’s the click of the lock and then his apartment door opens. Natasha walks in, key in hand.

“You don’t have a key,” Clint tells her, as she slips the key into her pocket. He pats down his own pockets to check his is still where he left it. It is, which would make an ordinary person question how Natasha got hold of a copy, but he’s long since learned not to bother.

“You’ve been put into STRIKE?” Natasha asks, annoyed. “What the hell, Clint? I’m having to run Delta on my own.”

“You would have had to anyway, I’m not cleared for active duty,” Clint points out, and she kicks the door shut and walks over, leaning on the counter and just looking at him like a sphinx waiting on an answer to some sort of riddle. He waits her out, feeling belligerent and drinking his beer.

“You’re meant to be recovering,” she says after a while, face impassive.

“Maybe this’ll help?” he points out. “Come on, Nat. You know I won’t do myself any favours sitting on my ass and doing nothing.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you all insisting that I take a break?” he asks. “Why aren’t you backing me up on this?”

“You went through hell,” she says quietly.

“I know I did, I was there,” Clint says. “I had front row seats to hell. But I’m out of hell now and want to join back in, and if you guys, if the Avengers or Fury won’t have me, I’ll go where I’m actually wanted.”

She looks at him for another few long seconds and then shrugs. “Okay,” she says simply, and pushes away from the counter. “I’ll see you at SHIELD, then.” 

“As long as you know I won’t sit with you in the cafeteria any more,” Clint yells after her, and feels a twist of satisfaction at the way she slams the door on her way out.

* * *

 

 

It was supposed to have been a joke, a bad joke about cliques and high-school, but two weeks into his new role with STRIKE and Clint walks into the SHIELD cafeteria with Rumlow and finds that Natasha is already there, sitting with  _ Captain fucking America. _ They’re huddled at a small table in the corner, talking quietly. She’s sipping coffee and Steve’s rolling a water bottle between his hands.

“-first deployment, so we’re going to have to get your gear sooner than we thought,” Rumlow is saying as he peers at the food on offer, not looking too enthused by the options. Nothing with enough protein in for him, probably.

“Huh?” Clint asks, distracted.

“Jesus, you better listen better than this in the field,” Rumlow complains. “We’re going to Estonia - you were in the briefing this morning, right? So we need to get you your tac gear today.”

“Yeah,” Clint says. “Does it come in purple?”

Rumlow snorts, nodding to the man behind the cafeteria counter and gesturing to a not-particularly appetising plate of spaghetti. “Thought you were over wanting to be different?”

Clint grabs a gatorade and a pre-packed sandwich, avoiding the hot food. “Suppose,” he says. “Various shades of black?”

Rumlow nods. “It’s slimming,” he says and Clint cracks up laughing. When he looks up, Natasha is looking his way, quiet and contemplative. His stomach does a weird twisty thing and for a moment he feels guilty about hanging with Rumlow, which is stupid because he’s not the one who cut him out of both the Avengers and Delta team.

“What’s Rogers doing in here, anyway?” Clint asks as they pay up. Rumlow looks around, careful eyes passing over Steve and Nat and then back to Clint, unobtrusive like he’s doing an undercover visual sweep.

“Replacing you by the looks of things,” he says, and elbows Clint. “Move, come on.”

He strides over like he owns the place to sit on a table in the middle of the room, frowning down at his phone as he sets down his food. “Shit,” he curses. “Tech say they can’t fit you until tomorrow, I’m going to put a boot up their ass.” He taps at his phone with his thumb and then shrugs. “Metaphorically,” he says with an oops-you-got-me smile, and then kicks out the chair opposite him.

Clint doesn’t hesitate before taking it, his back to Natasha and Steve.

* * *

 

 

For reasons that are both perfectly obvious and not altogether clear - a true Clint Barton paradox of a situation - Clint decides to keep out of Natasha and Steve’s way, head ducked like he’s trying to be unobtrusive against bullies or teachers or the nurse who just won’t quit asking. He eats with Rumlow and then they leave to go hassle the techs, who are looking frazzled but readily comply with Rumlow’s firm not-request that they fit Clint up today. Four hours later and he’s head to toe in black kevlar, matching the rest of STRIKE down to the last stitch.

“You’ll do,” Rumlow says, and Clint flips him the bird. Rumlow blows him a kiss back and Clint snorts.

“It’s got sleeves,” he says. 

“Wow, it’s like you understand how coats work,” Rumlow replies, nonplussed. 

“It’s got flexible seams,” the tech says, pulling at Clint’s shoulder straps. “And a matching quiver.”

Clint is about to make a smart-ass remark about the quiver when the door is pushed open and none other than Natasha and Steve walk in, Natasha like she's quietly trying to undermine Hill as Queen of all SHIELD and Steve like he’s walking the Green Mile. Of course they show up exactly as Clint resolves to avoid them altogether, because this is Clint’s life and the universe hates him. The techs abandon Clint and Rumlow and all beeline for Steve instead, who is looking wary and uncomfortable at the attention.

Natasha wanders over to Clint, leaving Steve at the mercy of the techs. “Hi,” she says to them both. “You all suited up?”

“He’s good to go,” Rumlow says as Clint nods. 

“Sleeves,” Natasha says and Clint feels awkward, because she got it but she doesn’t seem to get him anymore, like there’s some sort of divide growing between them. 

“Flexible seams,” he tells her with a shrug, and then comes the sound of twin beeping from both his and Rumlow’s pagers. 

“We gotta go, Barton,” Rumlow tells him. “Sorry,” he adds to Nat, who waves him off.

“It’s okay. I better save Steve from the techs anyway,” she says. “He’s being measured up and I have a feeling a few of them might be a little handsy.”

“Can you blame them?” Rumlow says, and Natasha almost-smiles, the faintest smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“Measured for what?” Clint asks.

“Tactical gear, he’s working for SHIELD now,” Natasha says. “My new Delta partner, unofficially.”

Wow. That sucks. Clint looks her in the eye for a moment but then Rumlow is nudging him and quietly reminding him that they’ve got to go, and then they’re leaving without looking back.

“That was tense,” Rumlow comments as they ride the elevator down. “Did you two fall out?”

“No,” Clint says. “She didn’t want me to join STRIKE. Said I should be recuperating.”

“Their loss,” Rumlow says with an easy shrug. “Hey, I’m just saying. If they didn’t want you, then they don’t get to bitch about us having you.”

Strangely, it makes Clint feel better. “Yeah,” he says. “Even though I’m a piece-of-shit Alpha agent?”

Rumlow grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling up. He reaches out to pinch Clint’s cheek. “Even though you  _ were _ a piece of shit Alpha agent,” he says, laughing as Clint knocks his hand away and shoves at him for good measure.

* * *

 

 

His first deployment happens right on schedule, chasing weapons suppliers that don’t exactly have the right permits. It’s a simple night-op, in and out to retrieve and neutralise, but adrenaline runs high as they gear up and board the chopper. Clint finds himself sitting between Rollins and a stony-faced agent called Jennings. Rumlow sits opposite him, catches his eye and winks.

The chopper thuds through the night, the inside of its belly lit only by moonlight. Clint breathes in and out through his mouth, feeling the heavy thud of his heart under his sternum, hyper-aware of everything around him. His night-vision goggles are digging into his forehead, a steady pressure. There’s no joking around, no chatting. It’s nothing like working with Natasha.

Rumlow kicks out at him, clips his knee. “Ready?”

Clint nods, fingers tapping against his bow. “Yeah. Are you?”

Next to him Rollins actually makes a noise that could be a snort of laughter. “You got this, kid,” he says. Clint’s eyebrows go up at the praise and across the way, Rumlow grins. 

It goes without a hitch. Everyone is on point, Rumlow directing with an easy confidence that reminds Clint of Cap, until he deliberately reminds himself stop making the comparison. The terrorists are dispatched, weapons are confiscated, leads are found and reported back to base. It’s before they even get to the safely-wrapped up and finished point that Clint finds himself revelling in it, in the thick of a firefight and loving every second of it.

_ Unfit for active duty my ass, _ he thinks as he climbs back aboard the chopper, grinning and smeared in dirt. Moore holds out a hand to pull him up, and Martinez tosses him a bottle of water. Rollins and Stone are hefting a stretcher into place on the back of the chopper and Clint goes to check with with the occupant. Just a scratch, Jennings tells him, pulling her hair out of its tight ponytail and running her fingers through it.  She still doesn’t smile but she accepts the bottle of water from Clint, and then Rumlow is there telling them to sit their asses down so they can get on the move. Everyone obeys without argument, and it’s easy and simple to do as he’s told, to strap himself in and feel pride swelling in his chest, fit to burst.

_ Screw you, Fury, _ he says to himself as Martinez shoves at him so he can rest his head on Clint’s shoulder, already half-asleep.  _ Screw all of you who thought I couldn’t do it. _

_ And screw you Loki, _ he adds, smiling to himself as he leans back against the wall of the chopper, closing his eyes even as the engine start to whine and thud. 

* * *

 

 

And they do something the Avengers never really did; they celebrate the win. They go to a bar and order enough booze to level a football team, and all twelve members of their STRIKE squad get rip-roaringly drunk. They beg Clint to play darts, egg him on as he’s whipping darts past Rumlow’s head, don’t come to the rescue when Rumlow gets him in a headlock in retaliation. They laugh and joke and relax, still a team even though they’re in civvies and not regulation black. Clint sits there in his purple shirt, twisting a dart between his fingers and feeling real for the first time since Loki’s staff touched his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

And life with the STRIKE team becomes quickly and easily routine for Clint. After Estonia comes Ukraine, then Brazil, then back to the Ukraine, and then an eventful trip to Canada in which Stone nearly gets eaten by a bear. It’s exactly what Pierce promised: messy black-ops work which is simultaneously incredibly dangerous and ridiculously fun. Despite the risks, it comes with a good pay packet, and Clint makes fast friends with most of the team. Rumlow is easily Clint’s new favourite; he kicks ass and takes names and has a brilliantly dry sense of humour. And Clint saw him incapacitate not one but  _ three  _ burly Ukrainian Mafioso-wannabes with nothing more than a baton. And a non-electrified one at that. 

Clint’s happy to admit to himself that he’s got a little bit of heart eyes for Rumlow. Not quite a crush, but he does think the guy is fucking awesome. Probably because Rumlow hasn’t doubted him, not once. It’s all,  _ ‘“yeah I trust you to take out these eight guards from your perch no problem,” _ and  _ “yeah we can send Barton in he’ll get it done,” _ and  _ “What do you mean you don’t think you can climb up the outside of that building, I call bullshit, someone get Barton a harness.” _

It’s oddly refreshing. Almost like how it was with Natasha to start with, except with more testosterone. 

He’s deep in the belly of SHIELD, training with Stone and Martinez when their pagers all go off simultaneously; they stop mid-maneuver to check, and all then groan as they read the words  _ ‘briefing room 16:00’. _ Briefings are not as much fun as they sound, and they sound terrible and boring even at the best of times.

They’re the first there so sit at the back like belligerent teenagers, still sweaty and gross from training. The rest of the team file in and then to Clint’s surprise so do Theta team and Omega team. 

“Oh balls,” he mutters, slouching down in his chair. Luckily, the room is filling up with the rest of STRIKE and various other analysts and techs, so he’s pretty effectively hidden. Still, he’s considering sliding completely off of the chair and onto the floor.

“What?” Martinez asks, looking up and around like an inquisitive and idiotic meerkat. “Oh man, not the Alpha teams. Where’s Delta?”

“Hopefully far, far away,” Clint mutters, and Stone cackles with mean laughter.

“Still not over the break-up?”

“Oh fuck off, Stone,” Clint says moodily, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “I’d just rather not.”

But the universe rather would, because walking into the room is Fury himself, followed by Rumlow, which isn’t so bad, and then Hill, Natasha and Steve which is more than bad. Rumlow scans the room, frowning. Behind Clint, Rollins helpfully catches Rumlow’s eye and points to the gap where Clint is slouching down out of sight, and Rumlow nods, rolling his eyes. 

Clint is busy watching the bit he can see of Steve through the gap in people in front of him, but he’s not too busy to call him a traitor. “Traitor. You see if I’m going to cover your ass next time.”

“It’s a sizeable ass, someone’s got to cover it,” Martinez says, and Rollins cuffs him around the back of the head.

“Alright, settle down,” Rumlow calls. “That means you too, Webster.”

Quiet falls, save for shuffling and breathing and chairs creaking. Fury stands at the front, hands behind his back. “We have an AIM cell that needs taking care of, a few miles out of Chicago,” he says. “It’s going to take a lot of man-power, so we’re sending STRIKE as well as STRIKE Alpha.  Rumlow will be heading STRIKE, and Captain Rogers will be overseeing the Alpha teams.“

“So Cap has authority over Rumlow?” Jennings calls out. Hoo, boy. Clint winces. That’s like questioning Rumlow’s masculinity in front of the entire room. 

“Yes,” Fury says. To Clint’s surprise, Rumlow doesn’t look remotely bothered by it, just stands there easy as you please with his arms folded over his chest. Clint shuffles up marginally and Rumlow looks to him instantly, shooting him a wink. 

Clint pulls a face in response and Rumlow’s mouth twitches like he wants to laugh. He doesn't though, just stands there cool and composed as the mission details are outlined, as squads are named and timeframes given. With the briefing over, everyone suddenly moves and Clint wriggles and flails to try and sit up straight, nearly pitching himself off of his chair in his hurry to get out of the room before anyone tries to talk to him. Hiding behind Rollins seems a good bet, and he manages to make it halfway to the door-

“Clint!”

Aw, timing. No. 

Steve waylays him six feet from freedom, looking far too pleased and hopeful. “I missed you last time, the techs pretty much swamped me,” he says, reaching up to push his fingers through his hair, a leftover habit from when it was long and sweeping. “How’ve you been?”

“I’m good,” Clint says, glancing around to try and see where Natasha is. She appears to have gone already, which is a relief and also kick-in-the-balls disappointing. “Working hard, you know.”

“I heard you’d joined STRIKE,” Steve says, rocking back and forwards on his heels, shoulders rising and falling with the motion, altogether too much like a bouncy patriotic labrador. “That’s good. Keeping busy.”

“Yeah,” Clint says, looking away from Steve’s smile which is sad and rueful and knows too much about the need to keep busy. It annoys him; if Steve knows what it feels like, then why didn’t he help Clint? Why didn’t he step in and vouch for him? “Yeah, it’s been good.”

SIlence falls between them, awkward. Steve looks down at his feet, his smile fading a little. “So, you heard from Tony?”

“No,” Clint says, and Steve’s face falls even further.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, clearly struggling with the sheer level of awkwardness that they’ve just reached. A veritable Everest of awkwardness by this point. “He said he’d spoken to the team.”

“I’m not on your team,” Clint shrugs. “Wasn’t cleared. STRIKE gave me a chance.”

Steve frowns at that, mouth opening to say something but thankfully Rumlow has Clint’s back, edging up and knocking Clint’s shoulder with his own. “Hey, Trouble, have you remembered you owe me paperwork from Colima?”

Clint takes a few moments to decide whether he’s going to be offended by the new nickname or not. “Trouble?” 

“Capital T,” Rumlow grins, and then turns to Steve. “Sorry, Cap, didn’t meant to interrupt.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, magnanimous even in the face of Rumlow’s obvious intervention. “Paperwork. I know how it is.”

“You were the one who came back to SHIELD,” Rumlow teases good-naturedly, falling into the conversation easily in a way Clint can’t hope to emulate. Oh man, it’s just like old days, him being awkward as fuck while Barney talks the talk. Big brother rocking up to save his hide, again.

“Well, they offered me a job,” Steve shrugs, smile coming back. “I hear you’d have to be an idiot to turn down a job in this economy.”

Rumlow laughs at that. “There’s worse places to be,” he grins. “Nice seeing you, Cap. Catch you on Wednesday.”

“Wednesday,” Steve nods, and then Rumlow is nudging Clint and steering him away without making it obvious. They ride the elevator back down to training level, apparently not done with the ass-kicking. Though an ass kicking would be preferable to where Rumlow decides to take the conversation.

“You’re really butthurt about the whole Avengers thing.” 

Clint’s mouth falls open in indignation. “What are you, a therapist?” he says. “Leave it out.”

“You know we’re glad they ditched you, right?” Rumlow says unexpectedly. “Because that means we got you.”

And Clint shoves his hands into his pockets, feeling small and weird and grateful. Rumlow rolls his eyes expansively and hooks an arm around Clint’s neck, dragging him into a hug that’s suspiciously like a headlock. The roughhousing is oddly welcome; Clint is laughing and trying to wrestle free.

“You better not ditch me for Cap now he’s joining us on missions,” Rumlow says, now fully committed to the headlock, walking down the corridor with Clint tucked under his arm. He nods at Agent Sitwell as they pass, who doesn’t so much as blink, just nods back and straightens his glasses.

“Nah,” Clint says with difficulty, fingers wrapped around Rumlow’s wrists so he can breathe. “I’ll stick with you guys.”

“Good,” Rumlow says, and pats the top of his head.     

* * *

 

  
The mission goes well. Steve steps up in magnificent form, though when Clint mentions this during the post-mission drinking session, the rest of the team round on him like angry wolves. Jennings says he better not ditch them. Martinez says that he’ll kick his ass if he ditches them. Rollins says that he’ll shoot him if he ditches them.

Rumlow rolls his eyes, passing and roughly ruffling his hair. “He’s not going anywhere, right, Trouble?”

“Right,” Clint grouches, pushing him away from his hair, trying to fight back a smile as Rumlow drops into the chair next to him, passing him a beer with a wink.

 

* * *

Director Pierce invites him for coffee again. Tells him that he’s proud of how Clint is doing. Tells him he’s glad to see Clint proving the doubters wrong. Clint doesn’t know what to say, so just drinks his coffee and mumbles a thank you. Pierce smiles gently, and nods like he knows what Clint is trying to say. 

  
  


* * *

Fury calls him in again, too. It’s not nearly as ego-affirming as his meeting with Pierce. Hill is there too, standing by the door like a guard-statue. Fury looks grave, mouth turned down like he’s got to tell Clint that someone has died.

“Hill,” Fury says, tired. She nods and leaves the room, door clicking shut behind her.

“So, you’re settling in well with STRIKE,” Fury says, clicking at his laptop. He presses something and the ceiling asks him for an override for a security blackout. “Fury, Nicholas J, three minutes” Fury says and then turns his attentions back to Clint. “Best friends with Rumlow. Having coffee with the director.”

“What of it? You guys weren’t inviting me anywhere,” Clint says. “Can I go?”

Fury stands up. “I need you to keep both eyes open,” he says slowly. “There are bigger things afoot than you and your issues.”

“What?” Clint screws up his face. “What are you talking about? Jesus, just because I found a team who wanted to keep me about-”

“Barton, listen to me,” Fury says intently. “There is something not right within these walls. I need you to be careful.”

Clint stares at him. “Me in particular?”

“Not just you,” Fury says. “Other people I trust too.”

Clint pulls a face at that. “You didn’t trust me to be on your team,” he says, and heads towards the door. “So don’t start with that shit now.”

Fury lets him go without argument. 

 

* * *

Another day, another mission. This time in the sweltering heat of Bolivia, in jungle so dense that there’s barely enough room to draw his bow. Man, rogue mercenaries really do pick the best places to stash their weapons and heroin. 

It’s Clint, Rumlow, Rollins and Jennings sweeping through a square mile of rainforest, and everything is going swimmingly well until Clint finds himself on the floor with a bullet in his thigh. He hits the floor just as the jungle erupts in gunfire, and he passes out just as Rumlow drags him to safety by his tac-vest.

When he wakes up, he’s alone and lying on a stretcher in a small, windowless room that’s lit by cheap fluorescent lighting which plunks on and off whenever it feels like it. Clint is attached to a drip and wearing nothing but his boxers, sweating in the humidity. He tries calling out but gets no answer, so does the sensible thing and goes wandering.

His leg is killing him. He’s got enough strength to limp through the concrete corridors though, so he does, bow in hand with an arrow loosely nocked. If anyone decides to jump him he’s going to come off very badly, but for now he’s managing.

He pauses as he hears shouting from somewhere within the complex. For a moment he thinks he hears Rollins but then there’s the shout of a voice he doesn’t know, and a strangled scream that would make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, if they weren’t too sweaty to manage it. Another scream follows and he feels unease claw its way down his spine, but rather than showing any sense of self-preservation and getting out of there, he carries on towards what sounds like an argument quickly escalating into a brawl.  

Limping as fast as he can without falling over or passing out or both, he stumbles through a not-quite-closed door and staggers to a halt as he finds Rumlow, Jennings and Rollins all present and accounted for, along with a whole bunch of people he doesn’t know. Two huge guys in black STRIKE gear have guns raised and pointed at a man who is sitting - well, objecting to being sat - in a metal chair in the middle of the room. Two guys in civilian dress are fretting around the man like moths around a lightbulb, darting back and forth.

Confused and curious, Clint edges forwards a little. He can’t see the man properly, only the back of his head, a heavy duty combat boot and a shoulder heaving with exertion and sweat.  _ What the hell, _ he thinks. Someone from another squad in a worse way than he is? A mercenary that’s been caught?

The man screams, a long low sound through a clenched jaw, and immediately one of the men is there, shouting something at him in Russian. The man snaps back and then when a second man shouts something at him he seems to give up and go limp. Clint has a moment in which he frowns and thinks that it’s weird for people to be shouting in Russian when as far as he remembers they’re in Bolivia, and then one of the gun-toting guys spots him and yells out,  _ “stop where you are!” _

“Shit,” Clint swears, and throws his hands up, bow and all. There’s more shouting and then Jennings and Rollins are striding over to him like black-clad tanks. Jennings grabs his bow, wrenching it out of his hand, and Rollins grabs hold of him, meaty palms clamped to his shoulders.

“Christ, get him out of here!” Rumlow is yelling, and Clint is half-escorted, half-dragged back to where he came from. Jennings is cursing and Rollins is muttering mutinously, something about, ‘ _ preferential treatment’ _ and ‘ _ just because he’s got a new best friend,’ _ and ‘ _ Rumlow really fucking it up this time.’ _

There’s another howl from down the corridor, and Jennings and Rollins look at each other grimly. “Sit still,” Jennings says forcefully, shoving him down onto the bed, and then they’re gone, back towards the ruckus in the other room.

“What the hell,” Clint says out loud to no-one in particular, picking his bow back up and rubbing Jennings’ smudgy fingerprints off the riser. 

Around seven minutes later and everything goes quiet. Clint is just debating whether to go wandering again - the debate lasts about ten seconds before he decides yep, gonna risk it - when Rumlow appears, looking pissed off and harried.

“Okay, there’s some shit you need to know,” he says bluntly. “Rollins doesn’t think you’ve got clearance, but I trust you. I can trust you, right?”

Clint thinks about Fury’s cryptic warning, Natasha’s dislike of his involvement with STRIKE. He thinks about Tony not-calling and Steve not-asking, thinks about Hill telling him to go home.

“Yeah,” he says. “Course you can. I’m with you now, aren’t I?”

Rumlow doesn’t smile, doesn’t joke at that. “It’s getting to the point where you better be,” he says. “I’m not shitting around, Barton. This is National Security -no,  _ World _ Security level intel. Even stuff the Avengers don’t know. So if we’re going down this road, I need to know that you’re not going to go running back to them.”

Clint is oddly insulted by that. “What more do I have to do to show I don’t want any part of the Avengers? Fury kicked me out on my ass and the rest of them didn’t care. The only one who tried to help was Thor, and he went back to Asgard anyway.”

_ I want to stay with you, _ a small voice in his head says, but he’s got enough pride to stop him saying it out loud. Instead he just asks, “What’s with the Russian?”

“Hear what I’m saying, Barton,” Rumlow says, and steps closer. “If we go down this road, changing your mind would mean treason.”

Clint ponders that. Even if he was taking Fury’s warning seriously, then surely the best place to be to keep an eye on things is right in the thick of it?

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “So who’s the Russian?” 

“You’re impossible,” Rumlow says, and reaches out to clap his hand to Clint’s cheek, pushing his head sideways. His thumb strokes against Clint’s cheekbone. “How’s the leg?”

“Doesn’t have a bullet in it anymore, so I’m good,” Clint says.

“Good,” Rumlow says, and steps even closer, pulling Clint’s head forwards so it rests on his chest, his strong hand cupping the base of his skull. “I thought you were a goner, man.”

“No way, I’m bulletproof,” Clint says. “Bulletproof and sweaty. Can we get out of here?”

“Just gotta calm the Russian down and then we’re good to go,” Rumlow says, his voice rumbling through him. “I’ll ask Pierce to up your clearance level when we get back and then I’ll fill you in.”

Clint nods, sweaty forehead sticking to Rumlow’s shirt. “You gottit. You carrying me out of here?”

“I’ll carry you to the chopper, then you’re on your own.”

Clint smiles tiredly, doesn’t bother lifting his head. “I’ll take it.”

* * *

 

 

They get back stateside and he’s gently bullied into going to SHIELD medical for a night while they keep an eye on his leg. He whines and complains and tries to escape, and gets as far as the end of the corridor before Stone and Rumlow catch him and firmly escort him back into his bed. Rumlow threatens to cuff him to the bed, and Clint has to bite his tongue on a joke about Rumlow getting kinky. Rumlow may be awesome but he can be a little cagey about any jokes or hints that insinuate he’s not 110% hetero, so Clint doesn’t go there. Stone catches his eye however, lips pressed together hard like he’s also holding back. 

Clint promises to behave, and later wishes he’d lied and escaped because just as he’s about to fall asleep, Natasha turns up at his bedside. 

“Durak,” she snaps, looking furious. She proceeds to berate him for getting hurt, for not calling her. Clint doesn’t know what to say, because it didn’t even cross his mind to go to her, and that makes him feel oddly guilty.

He tells her it’s fine, that Rumlow had his back. She curls her fingers around the bars of his bed and tells him that he trusts too easily.

“I trust a normal amount,” he tells her. “Just because you don’t.”

She doesn’t argue back. Just looks up at the wall, jaw working like she’s trying to think of what to say. “I’m going to California for a few weeks, Steve and I are doing some recon work.”

Clint nods, feeling tired. “Make sure he looks after you,” he says.

She takes his hand. “Make sure Rumlow keeps looking after you,” she murmurs, and when she leans over to kiss his forehead it feels like a goodbye. 

* * *

 

 

He’s in his Washington-home - also known as the hotel room that SHIELD have been paying for for months because he hasn’t bothered to find any place to live closer than Bed-Stuy - when Pierce comes to find him. He knocks politely at the apartment door and doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by the take-out boxes or the precarious pile of mugs on the coffee table. He just accepts a drink with a thank you and chats to Clint about how things are going. Midway through the conversation, Pierce sets down his glass and wanders over to the television. Perplexed, Clint watches him do it, but then his stomach sinks as Pierce straightens up, holding a small disk, not unlike a penny, between his fingers.

Pierce carries on chatting to Clint about the goddamn world series as he points to the phone. Clint obediently heads that way and within two minutes has found another bug.

Pierce takes it from him and strides into the bathroom, flushing both bugs down the toilet, then he collects his coat and nods towards the door. Clint collects his crutches and follows him down and out of the building.

“Did you put those there?” Clint asks as they walk slowly along. Pierce is happy to amble at Clint’s pace, hands tucked into his pockets.

“No,” Pierce says. “Fury did.”

Clint presses his lips together, feeling like utter shit. “Right in the feels.”

“I’ll have somewhere new for you set up. Maybe an apartment, rather than another hotel,” Pierce says easily, hailing a cab and taking Clint not to a new location but back to his very own house. It’s so fancy that Clint feels out of place the moment he steps through the door.

“So, you met Yasha in Bolivia,” Pierce says, offering Clint a seat at the counter and going to the fridge, pulling two beers out. 

“The Russian,” Clint guesses.

Pierce nods. “He’s known as the Asset,” he says. “Russian trained, but has worked for SHIELD for years. A highly effective member of STRIKE.”

“If he’s highly effective, how come I’ve never heard of him?”

“Because part of being highly effective is that he doesn’t legally exist,” Pierce says bluntly, sips at his beer. “I told you when you took this job that some of it would be off the books. Well, here you are. Yasha is off the books. Only around ten people currently know of his existence.”

“Does Fury know about him?”

“No,” Pierce says. “Part of what makes SHIELD work as an intelligence operation is that no single person knows all of the secrets.”

Clint thinks back to the mess in New York, finding out that the Avengers hadn’t been told about the tesseract. It makes sense, but it doesn’t sit well with his conscience.

“So, now I know about Yasha,” Clint ventures. “What does that mean?”

“It depends on you,” Pierce tells him. “We’re treading in very grey territory here. Yasha is a very, very dangerous man. He’s not always...let’s say he’s not always easy to work with. He can be erratic. But he has often single-handedly saved the world from utter carnage on several occasions. You can almost think of him like your friend Romanov. Sure, she works for SHIELD now, but she’s not always been on the side of good. She exists in a moral grey area, just like Yasha.”

Clint picks at the label of the beer bottle with his thumb. “I’ve not exactly got a clean sheet myself.”

Pierce nods. “Ideally, I want to train you up to be part of Yasha’s team. You have proved invaluable to STRIKE. I want to use your talents and extend the good that you can do.”

“Sounds like I’d be doing good by being not so good,” Clint says.

Pierce doesn’t deny it. “There will be tough calls. And you will probably be asked to do things that seem callous. Cold. Maybe even morally reprehensible.”

Clint thinks about it. Wonders how he’s ended up, being asked to step up and do things because no-one else can, because  _ he can. _

“When do I meet him?” he asks, and Pierce smiles.


	3. Chapter 3

He comes face to face with Yasha - The Asset - on the coldest day ever, deep in a Soviet-era bunker in Siberia. Clint is wearing every layer of STRIKE clothing he owns, plus a non-regulation woolly hat. His teeth are chattering and he hasn’t been able to feel his feet since they landed. 

“Stop whining,” Rumlow says, irritable because of the cold. “We’re here for two weeks so you better get over it.”

Clint doesn’t want to get over it. He wants to be in Bolivia with Jennings, Rollins and the rest of the team. He’d take heat over this frozen hell any day. But no, he and Rumlow have been dispatched as a unit to go and collect some American intelligence that has somehow ended up in the ass-end of Siberia, and they’ve got fourteen days on location  _ minimum _ .

The only thing stopping him from hating the mission with every fibre of his being, is the fact that The Asset is also being deployed, and Clint gets to meet him. 

It’s a little anti-climatic, to be quite honest. Rumlow has been telling him about some of the missions that the Asset has - well, assisted on, some of the things he’s pulled off. Clint is expecting epic things: maybe a room filled with smoke and menacing music, Darth Vader style.

What he actually gets is a cranky ghost-agent hunched over a table in a basement kitchen with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, sipping a hot drink and scowling at everyone who comes near him. Two men in shirts and ties are nearby - the same men from Bolivia if Clint remembers correctly, the ones that had been shouting at Yasha in Russian.

“Seal the doors,” Rumlow says to the pair of guards as they come in. “Morning, Yasha.”

He sounds careful and guarded in a way Clint hasn’t heard before. It’s a little unnerving, as is the way Yasha looks at Rumlow, eyes narrowing.

“ Kto s toboy?”

Irritation crosses Rumlow’s face. One of the shirt-and-ties looks up. “Oh, he asked who you’ve got with you.”

“New member of the team,” Rumlow says. “Director wanted him to meet you.”

Yasha’s eyes narrow even further, the mistrustful look intensifying. “He doesn’t normally,” he says and whoa, that was in perfect, accentless American English. It doesn’t sound right. “Why would he want that?”

“I don’t know, I’m not the Director,” Rumlow says. The two men in civvies are exchanging looks, clearly uneasy. “Just say hello, alright?”

“Hello,” Yasha says automatically. His eyes lift to Clint’s as he sips at his drink. They’re bright and grey and very cautious.

“Hi,” Clint says. “Uh, I’m Clint? I work for SHIELD.”

“STRIKE,” Rumlow corrects quickly. “He works for STRIKE.”

Yasha stares at him for a moment, looks away. “Where’s Rollins?” 

“In Bolivia,” Rumlow says. “Screw it, I’m making coffee. Barton?”

Clint accepts fervently, wanders over to sit in the chair opposite Yasha and carefully scrutinizing him. He’s got long brown hair scraped back into a tie, a few days worth of stubble on his jaw. He’s handsome but has an overall air of sullenness and negativity that covers him like a shadow. As Clint watches, he lifts his left hand from under the edge of the table to scratch at his brow and Clint does a double take because it’s made  _ entirely out of metal. _

“Holy shit,” he exclaims, and Yasha freezes in place. Clint stares at the hand, and Yasha stares at him as he continues to stare at the hand. The two shirt-and-tie guys take aborted steps forwards, looking vaguely panicked. Rumlow stands by the water boiler, mug suspended beneath it but not pressing the valve.

It’s the tensest stare-off Clint has ever been in, and he worked with Natasha for eight years. For one long quivering moment there’s a heady sense of anticipatory violence, and then Yasha simply sticks his hand out over the table, palm up.

“What the hell is this made of?” Clint asks, taking Yasha’s hand between his own, feeling the coolness and the weight of it, the grooves between the plates. “Why are you made of metal?”

“I lost my arm years ago,” Yasha tells him. Fascinated, Clint leans closer, nose almost touching the metal. Clint wants one. Imagine the draw weight he could achieve with a robot arm.

“He’s never-” one of the suits-and-ties starts to say and the other violently shushes him. They’re gaping at them like they’re rare animals in a zoo, exhibiting unprecedented behaviours that are both fascinating and worrying. Man, Clint hopes they haven’t got any tranq guns at hand.  

Yasha watches Clint examining his hand, seemingly content to sit and let Clint bend his fingers this way and that. After a while, he seems to frown and lifts his eyes to the other men in the room. “I’ve been awake for days and still no orders,” he says. “What’s going on?”

“Um,” suit-and-tie says, tearing his eyes away from Yasha and Clint and looking at Rumlow.

“Director is sending a schedule tomorrow morning,” Rumlow says easily. “We were delayed getting here. Thought it made more sense to keep you around and wait for us.”

Yasha nods slowly, withdraws his hand from Clint’s grip to reach behind him and pull the blanket up over his head, slouching back in the chair. “Slishkom kholodno,” he mutters, huddling down.

“Uh, he says it’s too cold,” one of the men says to Rumlow.

“Alright,” Rumlow sips his coffee, all casual-like. “I didn’t think complaining was part of his repertoire?”

The man looks to Clint, helpless. “Five days,” is all he offers, but Rumlow seems to get it. He picks up the two mugs of coffee and strides towards the door. “Barton, time to go,” he says. “Trouble, come on.”

Thoroughly confused, Clint gets to his feet. “What?”

“That’s an order,” Rumlow says, and he hustles Clint out of the room without further explanation.  
  


 

* * *

Rumlow tells him to take the rest of the night, to rest and read up on the briefing. He tells him not to worry about Yasha and the weird half-conversations he’d heard. Assures him that it’s just because the guy and his babysitters are so rarely around other people that they forget how to interact like human beings. 

Clint does not take the rest of the night to rest and read up on the briefing. As the lights go out in the facility and everything powers down for the night, he goes exploring. The corridors are empty and even colder than they were earlier, and Clint feels like he might as well be on the moon for how far away from civilisation he feels. 

A rustle from the basement kitchen makes him stop, listening hard. The noise continues and Clint obviously decides to check it out, pushing open the door-

“Yasha?”

The Asset whips around from where he’d been rifling through a cupboard, backing up against the counter and looking guilty as all hell. His dark hair falls in front of his face, no longer tied back.

“I was hungry,” he says angrily. 

Clint holds up his hands. “I’m not gonna say anything,” he says, a little bemused. “Find anything good?”

“Who sent you?” Yasha asks. “The Director? Rumlow? Does Johnson know I’m here?”

“I literally was wandering around because I couldn’t sleep and found you in here,” Clint says. “You seem pretty tightly wound, bro.”

Yasha just stares at him with those lake-water eyes. It’s still a lot unnerving, but Clint decides to just roll with it. He wanders over and digs into the cupboard, pulling out two MRE’s, peering at the packaging in the dark. 

Which is how he ends up sitting opposite The Asset having a midnight snack of military quality chicken alfredo. The Asset wolfs his down, eyeing Clint warily the whole time. He’s pale grey in the light that comes from the glowing exit sign above the door. 

“You’re not following protocol,” Yasha says as he licks sauce off of his fingers. “You’ll be disciplined.”

“What about you?”

Yasha shrugs. He’s eyeing up the uneaten pasta on Clint’s plate, so Clint pushes it over without a word. Yasha takes it without question, shovelling it into his mouth.

“Are you a test?” he asks when he’s polished off the lot. “Are you here to test me?”

“Test you for what?”

“How I react,” Yasha says slowly. “To see if I follow procedure. I’m not sure.”

“You’re really strange, you know that?” Clint tells him. “Want the cake, too?”

Yasha pauses, eyes flickering over Clint’s face in the darkness, and then the corner of his mouth curls in a tentative almost-smile and he nods.

* * *

 

 

They get found out, of course they do. Missing MRE’s and high-tech surveillance mean that their midnight feast doesn’t stay secret for long. Rumlow chews him out over it, reminding him that The Asset is not a friend, he’s an assassin who is shady as all fuck.

“This whole situation is shady as all fuck,” Clint points out. “What was I supposed to do, leave him to go hungry?”

Rumlow doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. “He’s...he’s not supposed to break the rules,” he says, like he’s choosing his words very carefully. “He’s dangerous, and we need to keep him in line. Please don’t encourage him.”

“I didn’t, he was already going through the cupboards when I got there, he was breaking the rules without my help,” Clint points out. “Come on, how am I supposed to work with the guy if I don’t get to know him? I can’t trust him if I don’t know him.”

Rumlow’s brows shoot up at that, shocked surprise like he’s never considered trust in the equation. 

“I’m not gonna screw up,” Clint says, and whoa, flashbacks to talking to Barney. “I know he’s not like just one of the team. But while I’m here with him, I might as well get to know the guy, right?”

Rumlow sighs, rubbing at his mouth. “Yeah, I know,” he says and pulls Clint in for a half-hug, arm slung around his shoulders. “I know you won’t screw up. Just don’t go causing trouble, yeah?”

“Would I ever?” Clint asks, and Rumlow rolls his eyes and shoves him away.

* * *

 

 

The next day he sees the Asset in training; hand to hand against four fully armed men. It’s terrifying. He’s ruthless, dodging blows and countering with admirable efficiency. Clint is in awe at the way he moves, even as Pierce’s words about him being erratic echo in the back of his mind.  Erratic, maybe. Goddamn incredible, definitely. Clint has got a weak spot for obvious displays of competence and badassery, so seeing the Asset at work - while shirtless, Clint thinks that the shirtless part of it has a lot to do with his reaction - leaves Clint shifting from foot to foot, caught in a weird space between being impressed and being turned on. 

When the sparring is over and the blood has been mopped up, the Asset leaves the room, expression blank. He spots Clint on the way out and hesitates, then waves. He’s quickly hustled out of the room even as Clint waves back.

“Well, shit,” Rumlow says. “He’s pretty taken with you.”

“Should I be scared?” Clint asks. He manages not to say  _ ‘That's okay, because, I’m pretty taken with his abs’ _ out loud, which is probably a good thing.

Rumlow hums, see-saws his hand. “Probably. On a scale from uneasy to pissing your pants, I would be a five.”

_ Great,  _ Clint thinks.  _ That’s exactly the sort of scale that I need in my life right now. _

* * *

 

 

He can’t stop thinking about Yasha all day. When he goes over weapons logs with Rumlow, he’s thinking about Yasha. When they do their own sparring, he’s thinking about Yasha. When he climbs into his bed and stares at the ceiling, he’s thinking about Yasha.

And when he wakes up at the asscrack of the morning after dreaming vaguely about Yasha, he’s definitely thinking about him because Yasha is right there, standing at the end of his bed and watching him like some sort of crazy stalker.

Clint holds back the yelp, barely. “What are you doing?” he hisses, hand pressed to his heart. 

Yasha just stands there for a moment, a statue in the dark. “I don’t know,” he says eventually. “No-one told me to come here.”

That seems important to him, somehow, but it sets off alarm bells in Clint’s mind. This man is not supposed to be wandering around as he pleases, even though Clint can’t quite agree with it. He’s a person, for god’s sake, he should be allowed to break the rules every now and again.

“Okay, but why are you here?” 

Yasha looks around, and then he lifts a hand to reveal two granola bars. It makes Clint’s chest go all weird and strange, and the hopeful look on Yasha’s face just makes it worse. _Fuck, this guy had never had a friend in his life_ , Clint thinks. _He’s trying to make friends with me._

Rumlow will give him another dressing-down if he lets Yasha get away with stealing more rations. Pierce will probably have kittens if he knows that Clint is befriending his technically non-existent STRIKE assassin.

He holds out a hand and Yasha quickly scrambles onto his bed, sitting cross-legged by Clint’s knees and passing over one of the bars.

They eat in silence, but Clint’s thoughts are loud. There’s something not right here, and yeah yeah Pierce had warned him that he was heading into the realm of morally dubious, but this whole business just seems so  _ sad _ . It had all seemed understandable when Yasha was just a name, a concept, described as a necessity in the name of World Security. But now he’s actually here in front of Clint with his long hair and bright eyes and predilection for stealing food, it just seems  _ wrong _ .

* * *

 

 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Trouble,” Rumlow groans. 

“What?” Clint says, holding up his hands in defence. “Not my fault the guy likes me.”

“I’ve got to call the Director and update him, what am I going to say?” Rumlow says, but doesn’t seem to want an answer. “That you’re ignoring protocol? Dude, your psych evaluation is enough to have you kicked off the team anyway, and here you are proving it right.”

Well that stings. “I’m sorry,” Clint says.  _ Please don’t kick me off the team. Please let me stay with you. _ “You’ve read my evaluation?”

Rumlow sighs, reaches out for him and holds onto his shoulders. He’s disappointed, and it makes Clint’s stomach curdle. “Forget it. Get geared up, we’re going out in thirty.”

“Sir, yes Sir,” Clint says and decides to do as he’s told.

  
  


* * *

When he returns from freezing his ass off in the wastelands of Siberia, Yasha is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t appear that night, either. No rations go missing overnight, and there’s no indistinct Russian yelling from anywhere in the complex.

In fact, it’s eleven whole days before Yasha appears again, and when he does Clint can instantly tell that something is Very Wrong. Yasha dispatches six opponents during sparring, scores twenty-eight bullseyes on the range. He follows either Rumlow or a shirt-and-tie without argument and doesn’t so much look at Clint, nevermind waving or bringing him snacks.

“What’s wrong with him?” Clint asks Rumlow, the second they get a moment alone. “Why is he being all-” He opens his eyes wide, wipes his face of any expression, moving his arms around like a robot.

“Cut that shit out,” Rumlow says, knocking his robot arms down with his own hand. “He’s on a lot of meds, you know? He’s good at what he does but he’s...erratic. The meds level that out. He must have had a dose adjusted, that’s all.”

Rumlow goes to walk away, but Clint catches his wrist. “It doesn’t - this doesn’t feel right,” he says.  _ This isn’t right, _ he thinks. It sounds a bit like someone is screwing with Yasha’s brain and Clint know all too well what a horrifying experience something like that can be. 

“You said you were with us,” Rumlow says. “You told me and Pierce that you were STRIKE now.”

“I am-”

“Then act like it and do as you’re fucking told,” Rumlow snaps, clearly frustrated. “Look, you knew what you were getting yourself into. We warned you that this wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows, and we warned you about the Asset.  We live in a fucked up world, and it takes some fucked up things to keep it safe. He’s one of those things. He’s not your friend, he’s not just a soldier, he’s an Asset. He does what SHIELD need him to do to keep the world safe, and you’ve got to accept that.”

Clint looks at the floor, because Rumlow is right and he knows it. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay, yeah.”

Rumlow takes his head in his hands, makes him look up at him. “Head in the game, Trouble,” he says gently, earlier irritation gone. “You’re doing great, you know that. I wouldn’t want to be here with anyone else.”

“I’m going to tell Rollins you said that,” Clint says, and Rumlow punches him on the shoulder with a grin.

* * *

 

 

Yasha is alone at the table in the basement kitchen, motionless and staring at the tabletop. Clint spots him out of the corner of his eye as he walks past, his presence not registering until he’s a good six feet past the door. He pauses then backs up, walking backwards until he’s level with the doorway again.

“Yasha,” he calls. No response. “Hey, Yasha.”

Yasha looks up this time, expression blank. Clint walks forwards, sliding into the seat opposite him. “Long time no see,” Clint says, and then waves a hand in front of Yasha’s vacant stare. “Hey, you with me?”

“Clint Barton,” Yasha says, voice rough.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Clint says, “Wow, how many drugs are you on?”

Yasha frowns, shakes his head slightly. “I don’t understand,” he says eyes meeting Clint’s then skittering away.

“I’m on your team now, remember?” Clint ventures. “We got in trouble for stealing MRE’s last week? You bought me a granola bar?”

Yasha just looks at him helplessly. “I don’t always remember,” he says, sounding somewhere between apologetic and resigned. His eyes meet Clint’s. “I remember you though?” he offers, brows knitting together.

“Yeah, alright,” Clint says, unsure how to proceed. “So. You just sitting here? What’re you doing?”

“Waiting for orders,” Yasha says simply.

“You and me both, pal,” Clint says, and they sit there together in silence.

* * *

 

 

Yasha takes to sitting with Clint whenever he’s not busy doing whatever he does. When there’s a moment of respite, when the shirts-and-ties aren’t hovering, when they’re not busy, Yasha finds Clint and sits with him, usually looking confused as to why he’s even there. They don’t talk a lot, but everyone just seems to give up on trying to keep them apart and just leave them to it. Clint overhears the shirts-and-ties talking about attachment and heightened response to kindness. He shrugs it off until a few days later when he finds a packet of beef stew and a candy bar hidden under his pillow, and then he concedes the point that maybe, just maybe the Asset has imprinted on him like the world’s most lethal baby duckling.

 

 

* * *

 

The mission goes off without a hitch. They retrieve the files - Clint and Rumlow running ops on the ground and Yasha covering them from his sniper’s nest like some sort of leather-bound avenging angel. He’s ruthless and efficient and Clint nearly pops a boner at the display of badassery; it’s like the training room magnified by a million.

Odd arousal at Yasha’s cool competence aside, Clint finds that everything else goes just as he predicted. It’s twenty-eight hours of gruelling work out in the cold, but when they’re back on the jet with the files locked safely away in a triple-coded briefcase, Clint can’t help but feel proud. 

Mission done, they’re clear to return stateside. sixteen days exactly and now he’s ready to go home, standing in the back of the jet as it’s prepped for takeoff. Just before the back door closes a figure appears, standing in black kevlar and with his rifle in hand, lower half of his face covered by a mask. The snow swirls up around him, hair blowing in the wind. As Clint watches, the figure raises a hesitant hand and waves.

_ ‘Goodbye you amazingly dangerous, sexy ghost-assassin, you,’  _ Clint thinks. Rumlow is standing next to him though, so he just Clint waves back just before the doors wind shut with a heavy, decisive thud.

* * *

 

 

The moment he’s back on American soil, he’s promptly kidnapped by Maria Hill who is driving an armoured SUV and looks to be not in the mood for revelry of any sort. She marches him all the way to Fury’s office, refusing to answer any of his questions, which Clint thinks is rather rude considering Fury starts asking questions of his own the moment Clint is hustled through his door.

“Where have you been?” Fury asks.

“Siberia,” Clint replies. “What‘s it to you? You’re not the boss of me.”

“Are you still trying to prove a point?” Fury asks him. “We didn’t tell you to take a break because we thought you couldn’t cope.”

“That’s  _ exactly  _ why you did it, don’t patronise me,” Clint snaps. “Did you bug my hotel room?”

Fury looks at him long and impassive, and then simply says, “yes.”

“Screw you,” Clint says, walking towards the door. “Screw you and screw Nat and screw Captain fucking America.”

“Clint. We did it because we were worried-” Fury begins.

“Then you could have called me! I own a phone!” Clint yells back, just as the door opens. Hill leans in, looking calm and impassive even though she probably heard Clint’s dulcet tones from where she’s undoubtedly been lurking in the hallway outside. 

“Sir, Director Pierce is expecting Barton at debrief.”

“I’m outta here,” Clint says, making towards the door.

“Remember, both eyes open,” Fury calls after him, and Clint is feeling belligerent enough to give him the finger as he storms out. He’s still feeling pissy by the time he stomps his way to Pierce’s office, grunting at Rumlow as he opens the door for him.

“Oh dear,” Pierce says. “Fury still not over losing you to STRIKE?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Clint says. “Can you give me a mission somewhere far away from here, please?”

Pierce smiles, pushes Clint gently onto the couch. “Breathe, agent,” he says, calm but still an order. “Rumlow, get him some water.”

“No disrespect, Sir, but I think he probably needs something stronger.”

Pierce huffs out a laugh at that. “We’ll start with water,” he says. “Alright, Agent Barton. Reports from Siberia are looking good. You did good. I’m very impressed.”

“Thank you, Sir.” 

“How did you get on with The Asset?” Pierce asks, taking a glass of water from Rumlow and handing it to Clint.

“It was…” Clint says, unsure. “I get it. I get why we need him, people like him. But seeing him in person. Sorry. I’m not trying to stir anything up, but your Asset is all kinds of screwed up.”

Pierce nods, a small sad smile curving his mouth. “Rumlow says he took a liking to you. As far as he likes people.”

Clint shrugs. “Seemed to.”

Rumlow and Pierce exchange a look over the top of Clint’s head. “I’m sending you to Afghanistan,” he says to Clint, who glances to Rumlow. Rumlow shrugs, mouthing,  _ “just roll with it.” _

Pierce carries on as if he’s not noticed. “The Asset will meet you there. I want you to work with him, learn from him, and keep him safe.”

Clint blinks. “What?”

“I’m promoting you,” Pierce says. “You now consider yourself an Asset, too.”

“Whoa,” Clint says, alarmed. “Are you going to disappear me? Make me legally not exist?”

“No, no,” Pierce says, laughing. “Not at all. We’ll just take you off the grid for a while. There’s several targets across the North of the country. They're a threat to peacekeeping efforts, and they’re blocking crucial trade routes near the border. You and Rumlow will lead a STRIKE unit, with the Asset as mission support.”

“Piece of cake. I'm in,” Clint says, and Rumlow bites down on a laugh. 

“And I didn’t even need to tell you about the pay-rise,” Pierce smiles. “You have six weeks, no more.”

“Why the time frame?” Clint asks.

“Rumlow has some upcoming ops to run here with Captain Rogers,” Pierce tells him, and Rumlow pulls a face over the top of Pierce’s head, though Pierce seems to get the gist of his attitude without having to see it.

“You work well with Captain Rogers,” he says sternly. “It’s not permanent, and I expect you to treat him with the utmost respect.”

“I do, Sir,” Rumlow says. “I like working with Rogers. I just like working with Trouble better.”

“Well, Trouble is all yours for six whole weeks,” Pierce says, standing up and clapping Clint on the shoulder. “Three days, Barton, and then you’re heading out.”  

“Yes, Sir,” Clint says, stomach twisting at both the thought of getting away from Fury and Natasha and Steve for so long, and the thought of seeing Yasha again so soon.

* * *

 

 

STRIKE give him them an epic send off. They drink their own bodyweight in beer, and Rollins hefts Clint onto his shoulders in the middle of the bar, loudly extolling his loyalty and skill. Martinez repeatedly tells Clint that he’ll miss him everyday, and even Stone looks gutted that Rumlow and Clint will be away. Rumlow just smiles quietly through it all, pulling Clint in when he gets a chance, winding an arm around his neck. “We make a hell of a team,” he murmurs in Clint’s ear, breath whiskey-hot on the side of his face. 

“Yeah we do,” Clint assures him, and Rumlow laughs and drunkenly pats Clint’s cheek, eyes glinting with something Clint can’t quite read.

* * *

 

 

To Clint’s dismay, Afghanistan is almost as cold as Siberia. Well, maybe not, but the daytime temperatures struggle to break forty degrees, and the nighttime just gives up and lets frozen hell take over. 

They’re camped in a safehouse on the edge of a sprawling town, low-slung stone buildings that stretch for a miles or so. To the north Clint can make out rugged mountains, a patchwork of green-yellow-brown fields and impossibly blue lakes at their feet. In the other direction is desert; nothing but a single road cutting through the dull grey-orange. It’s oddly beautiful - reminds Clint of just how small he is. How he’s a single speck on the planet, doing his damnest to make it better.

They spend three days settling in, the four members of their squad masquerading as members of a private security firm, then the Asset shows up without so much as a warning, his suits-and-ties in tow. Miller and King are working - probably making sweet inappropriate love to their guns or stun batons - in the basement, and Clint and Rumlow have appropriated the old but comfortable furniture of the lounge, playing cards and yawning at ever-increasing intervals when Yasha simply walks in and sits down at the spare chair. 

“Where’s Johnson?” Rumlow, to his credit doesn’t bat an eyelid at Yasha’s appearance, just thumbs his cards and frowns at them.

“Setting up upstairs,” Yasha says. “Equipment.”

“I better go and check it’s secure,” Rumlow says, yawning so widely his jaw clicks. “You know how to play Hungarian Casino, Asset?”

Yasha just looks at him, expressionless. Rumlow laughs, the sound mean. “Thought not. Remember your orders?”

The Asset inclines his chin, barely. “Da.”

“Good.” Rumlow says, and then he’s gone, leaving Clint and Yasha alone. Yasha looks around the room in a way similar to how Natasha examines new spaces; carefully and thoroughly. Clint leaves him to it, starting to build a card tower out of his hand.

“Do you not mind him calling you Asset?” he asks curiously, reaching for Rumlow’s discarded hand to add to his tower.

“No,” Yasha says without inflection. “It’s no different to me calling him Commander.”

Clint pokes his tongue out as he concentrates on balancing the cards. “I guess.” 

“You ask a lot of questions,” Yasha says, watching as Clint adds another layer of cards atop the first. 

“Yeah, it gets me in trouble sometimes,” Clint tells him. 

“Hopefully not too much trouble,” Yasha says. “Out here the penalties for being insubordinate are not pleasant.”

Fingers curled around two cards, ready to add them to his tower, Clint glances up to see intense grey eyes fixed on his own, calm but possibly curious. “You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

“Where else can you speak from,” Yasha says, and picks up the rest of the deck, shuffling them slowly between dexterous fingers and then holding two more out. “Why talk about something you don’t know.”

“Well, maybe you wanna dream, or use your imagination,” Clint suggests, taking the cards from Yasha.

“I don’t dream,” Yasha says without inflection. “They make it so I don’t.”

Clint’s fingers slip on the cards and the tower comes tumbling down. “What?” he says, appalled. “That’s not fair!”

Yasha shrugs, waiting for Clint to start rebuilding the tower before thumbing another two cards off of the deck and handing them over. “I’m not sure I’d have good dreams, considering the work I do.”

“Well there is that,” Clint concedes, though he’s still adamantly in the camp of  _ ‘that’s messed up.’ _ “I just...dreaming is something you take for granted, you know? Man, I have this recurring dream that I’m late for work because someone has tied all my shoelaces together, and then when I get there someone has replaced all my bowstrings with shoelaces. Nat used to say it meant something about me being my own worst enemy.”

“Nat?”

Clint pauses. He doesn’t really want to talk about her. That’s his old Hawkeye life, now. She’s not really part of his new one.  “An old friend,” he shrugs. “I don’t see her much, not anymore.”

“People come and go,” Yasha says.

“That’s ominous coming from an assassin.”

Yasha doesn’t reply, just goes back to shuffling the cards. There’s a dull thud from upstairs, raised voices. Yasha’s eyes track the sounds, his expression guarded. _He’s very handsome, despite the thousand yard stare_ , Clint thinks absently. It’s not the first time he’s thought it, and it turns out to not be the last.

* * *

 

 

Clint isn’t entirely sure that he’s going to make it out of Afghanistan alive. A little bit because he’s awake at five AM without any coffee, but mostly because he’s in the workshop slash basement of their safehouse in nothing but his underwear, with Rumlow wrapping his knuckles in preparation for sparring with Yasha. 

“I am going to die,” Clint says, blinking owlishly in the low light. Oh god, he wants to go back to sleep so badly that he’s shivering with it. 

“Try not to, or the Asset will eat your breakfast,” Rumlow grins. “Okay, he’s not going to go easy on you or you won’t learn. But if you need him to stop, if it’s an emergency, you say  _ olen, belyy,  _ _ opasnost. _ Say them back to me, come on.”

“Olen, belyy, opanost,” Clint repeats. “Russian?”

“Yeah. Deer, white, hazard,” Rumlow informs him. “But saying them in English won’t do jack shit so you better remember the Russian.”

“What if I can’t talk?”

“Then I’ll say them if I think you’ve had enough,” Rumlow says. “What, you don’t trust me?”

“Course I do,” Clint says. “Oh, man. I thought I was here to unblock some trade routes?”

“ _ And _ learn from the Asset,” Rumlow reminds him. “Which means sparring and learning Russian. He’s not got a lot else to offer except good aim with a sniper-rifle, and you don’t need that.”

“He doesn’t dream, you know that?” Clint says, and Rumlow gives him a dark look. 

“Don’t you start feeling sorry for him,” he warns, just as footsteps herald the arrival of Yasha and his two shirt-and-ties, Johnson and Garcia. Clint still isn’t sure what their official role is. As far as he can make out, they’re like Asset babysitters.  

Yasha is only wearing a pair of sweatpants, his metal arm on full display. His eyes go straight to Clint as he ducks through the low doorway, and he waves. Clint waves back, although he would admittedly be happier to see Yasha if Yasha weren't about to kick his ass on company orders.

“Does he know the sequence?” Yasha asks as he steps into the middle of the room. 

“You don’t usually care,” Rumlow remarks, and to Clint’s surprise Yasha levels Rumlow with a glare hard enough to cut diamond. Rumlow holds his hands up, averting his eyes. 

“Alright, easy. He knows.”

Clint’s never seen Rumlow concede to anyone before. Interesting.

He can't dwell on it too long though because Rumlow is pushing him forwards and the babysitters are moving hastily back. One of them is actually wringing his hands, twisting the fingers of one hand over and over in the other.

“Training. Procedure three,” Rumlow says, and Yasha nods, turning his body ever so slightly towards Clint.

“Hit me here and you win,” he says, tapping his sternum with a metal finger.

“Alright,” Clint says, stepping forwards, adrenaline starting to pump headily through his veins. “You got it.”

* * *

 

 

In the end, Clint doesn’t use the sequence words. Rumlow doesn’t either.

It’s a few seconds after Yasha’s fist makes too-solid contact with Clint’s nose; Clint feels it break and of course it starts pissing blood everywhere. He drops to the floor like a stone, willing away the blinking spots in his vision and trying to think of a move to counter, throwing up an arm to brace because Yasha will undoubtedly press his advantage like he’s been doing for the past twenty-two minutes. 

He hears Rumlow barking something, hears the whine of Yasha’s metal arm and then out of nowhere-

_ “Olen, belyy, opanost!” _

Clint kneels there, frozen in place as his brain tries to catch up. The whole room goes still as if time itself has been paused, and then it clicks.

It was  _ Yasha  _ who said them. 

Chaos promptly ensues. 

Panting, Clint looks up to see Yasha stepping back with his chin dipped low and his hair hanging in his face, the two babysitters rushing in from either side. They’re shouting and Rumlow is shouting and Miller and King are rushing in from upstairs, and all at once Yasha is unceremoniously hustled from the room.

“Goddamnit,” Rumlow snarls, dragging Clint upright.

“What just happened?” Clint manages to ask, though the word ‘happened’ comes out with more ‘B’ sounds than he intended. Thanks, broken nose.

“The Asset just code-worded himself out of a fight,” Rumlow snaps. “Fuck’s sake, he’s going to be out of commission all day now.”

“Just tell him I’m fine, tell him to come back,” Clint says, spitting out a mouthful of blood and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“He can't just come back, dumbass,” Rumlow tells him. “He’s used the codewords, he literally can’t fight now until the techs sort his fucking brain out.”

“What?” Clint is almost dumbstruck, but not quite. “He’s - They’re actual trigger phrases?”

“How else are we supposed to keep him from gutting us in the night?” Rumlow says, reaching out to knock Clint’s hand away and pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, he’s never done that before. What is it with you and him?”

“He’s a baby duckling,” Clint offers, but with the _ look _ that Rumlow gives him in return, decides to say no more.

* * *

 

 

Clint sits alone in the living space of their house when Yasha comes in. He looks spacey and not altogether with it, swaying a little as he comes to stand in front of Clint. It’s horribly reminiscent of before, when Clint had to remind him about the granola bars.

“Don’t worry, I remember today,” he says, and he looks around before picking up the discarded ice-pack and lifting it carefully to Clint’s nose.

“Are you supposed to be here?” Clint asks carefully, blinking at Yasha over the top of the ice-pack. He’s relieved that Yasha’s memory seems to be in once piece today, more so than he expected.

“I asked permission,” Yasha says. “I didn’t mean to break your nose.”

“Rumlow said you wouldn’t go easy on me,” Clint says, shifting up on the dilapidated couch and patting the worn cushion. “Come on.”

Yasha sits next to him, twisting so he can keep a gentle hold of the ice-pack. He pulls up his feet, chin resting atop his knees and careful eyes watching Clint watch him. He uses his free hand to pull a blanket off of the back of the couch, tossing it over Clint’s knees.

“Have we done this before?” he asks.

Clint shakes his head, winces as the pack bumps his nose.

“No,” he says. “Is it really that hard for you to remember things?”

“Sometimes,” Yasha says. “Today is okay, they just had to recalibrate me, because of the words.”

“ _ What?” _ Clint asks. “Why the hell would you say them if -  _ recalibrate? _ You’re not a  _ machine. _ ”

Yasha just shrugs his shoulder at that, as if he’s saying  _ ‘well, technically, I kinda am.’ _

Clint’s not sure what to say to that. The knot of unease in his belly is growing ever stronger. This isn’t right. How they’re treating Yasha is not right. Man, he doesn’t want to argue with Rumlow, really doesn’t want them to fall out over this but he’s not sure he can just let it slide.

“This feels familiar,” Yasha says. “I’ve done this before. Someone with a broken nose. Though he didn’t want me looking after him.”

“I kinda of feel like...you shouldn’t tell your babysitters that you remember that.”

Yasha frowns. “They help me. They keep me able to function.”

“They take away your-” Clint snaps, but reels himself in. “I’m sorry. I just. I came to work with STRIKE and everything was great but how they treat you? That doesn’t sit well with me.”

“My work shapes the century,” Yasha says quietly. “They need me.”

“But what about you? Don’t you matter in all of this?”

Yasha shakes his head slowly, but he seems distracted. “We’re talking treason right now,” he says.

Clint hand-waves the concern. “Who put them in charge, anyway? I didn’t vote for them. Did you vote for them?”

Yasha’s mouth quivers in a fleeting, faltering smile. “I don’t get a vote,” he mutters, and then he lowers the ice-pack, gently pressing the tips of his metal fingers to Clint’s cheekbone. His eyes track restlessly over Clint’s face, and Clint feels like Yasha is somehow seeing right through him. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that? What? Does my nose-”

Yasha answers by leaning over and very gently kissing Clint on the mouth. Clint goes very still, eyes fluttering closed even as Yasha is pulling back.

Oh wow. He’s just had one landed on him by a freaking ghost-assassin. And this time he’s not talking about a punch. 

“Don’t tell them I did that,” Yasha whispers. “They’ll make me forget I did it.”

“Okay, yeah,” Clint says. He swallows hard. Yasha is still very close, eyes flickering over Clint’s face. “Why did you do that?”

Yasha doesn’t answer. He’s silent and dangerous in the dark, heaving out a sigh and turning to rest his head on Clint’s shoulder. He closes his eyes, bottom lip trembling.

“Hey, hey, I got you,” Clint murmurs, shoving at Yasha so he can slip an arm behind him, holding him close and clumsily stroking a palm over his hair.

* * *

 

 

Clint leaves Yasha sleeping on the couch, padding silently up to the roof of the building, passing the locked door belonging to the suit-and-ties as he goes. He thinks about kicking the door in and waking them up with a swift punch to the mouth, put he doesn’t. 

Alone, he stands on the roof with a blanket pulled around him, watching the sun rise over the desert, the grey chill giving way to orange-gold warmth, colour creeping back into the world.

_ You need to keep both eyes open. _

_ You will  _ _ probably be asked to do things that seem callous. Cold. Maybe even morally reprehensible. _

The sunlight reaches the buildings, the white stone bright in the weak rays. Clint shivers and pulls his blanket tighter. He’s in trouble here, and not just the ‘ _ forgot my wallet’ _ or ‘ _ missed a meeting with Fury _ ’ kind of trouble. He can’t just ignore Yasha now, can’t just leave him to the mercy of STRIKE, no matter what STRIKE think the greater good is.

Frankly, the greater good can line up and kiss Clint’s ass. Yasha might be an erratic assassin that doesn’t legally exist, and who probably has more red in his ledger than ten Natasha’s combined, but Clint knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he doesn’t deserve  _ this _ .


	4. Chapter 4

The kiss goes unmentioned. As does the half-whispered conversation by moonlight. Neither of them make any official pact to keep quiet, but it seems to be some sort of mutual understanding that they play by STRIKE’s rules and don’t give away any hints that they’re deviating from the norm.

Sparring continues, without any codeword use - although Clint knows by his lack of broken bones that Yasha is pulling his punches. Russian lessons are less successful; as quick as Clint is at picking up fight sequences, he’s awful at picking up vocabulary and verb forms.

When they’re not working inside, they go out on recon missions, gathering intel and tracking suspects. He, Yasha and Rumlow work incredibly well as a unit, but Clint can’t just enjoy it like he enjoyed his time with STRIKE.

In fact, the only time he does enjoy anymore is when he’s one to one with Yasha. Even when he’s being forced to learn all about negated verbs.

“Focus,” Yasha insists, tapping his metal finger against the sheet of paper in front of Clint. “Durak.”

“Idiot!” Clint says, triumphant. “I know that one!”

“You’re impossible,” Yasha says. “How are you gonna know if a shipment will or won’t come in if you don’t learn these?”

“I’ll ask you, duh,” Clint says, rubbing at his eyes. “Come on, we’ve got to be out of here at four hundred to track that jeep. What’s doesn’t in Russian?”

“Russian doesn’t have - oh my god, what have you even learned in the past hour?”

Clint grins, rocks the chair back onto two legs. “That the pissier you get, the more you sound like you’re actually from New York.”

Yasha looks over his shoulder automatically, then curses under his breath. “Don’t,” he says, warning. “Don’t say things like that.”

Clint’s smile fades at the obvious strain in Yasha’s voice, the way his eyes dart around like he’s afraid. Clint hesitates, then picks up his pen and writes on the bottom of his page, before siding it over to Yasha.

_‘I won’t do anything to put you at risk.’_

Yahsa reads it, and then the corner of his mouth hitches up. “Write it in Russian,” he says. “You’re supposed to be learning.”

Clint does as he’s asked. He re-writes it in perfect Russian, and sticks his tongue out at Yasha for good measure. Yasha reaches out as if to snatch Clint’s tongue between his metal fingers but Clint is too quick for him, ducking down and pushing Yasha’s hands away.

“Durak,” Yasha says again, but this time it’s fond and he meets Clint’s eyes and smiles.

 

* * *

 

 

That night, Clint steals up to the roof again to watch the stars, thinking about what might be going on with the Avengers in New York, or wherever they are. He half wishes he were back there with them so he didn’t have to be constantly wrestling with his conscience over Yasha, but if he were there he wouldn’t be here with Yasha. Besides, he’s still got Rumlow, who in his head is pretty much an upgraded big brother. Someone who has his back like Barney did, but without all the downsides.

He can’t dwell on it for too long; he’s out there for mere minutes and then Yasha comes to him. He observes Clint for a moment and then pads over, lying down next to him with his face turned up towards the stars. They don’t speak, but Clint doesn’t mind. He feels his heart-beat pick up as Yasha’s body presses against his side, and Clint is suddenly hyper-aware of his hands and feet and wondering what he normally does with them when he’s lying down. Every movement Yasha makes feels huge. Monumental.

The night grows colder but Yasha is a solid line of warmth at Clint’s side, and he’s beautiful and he’s an utter enigma, and Clint barely knows him but when Yasha leans up and over to kiss him, he accepts willingly.

It’s soft and gentle and hesitant. Yasha murmurs something about feeling want, about wanting for the first time since he can’t remember when, but cuts his own explanation off when he leans back into the kiss. He rests his metal palm on Clint’s chest as they kiss slow and unhurried, like they’ve got all the time in the world. Yasha’s mouth is so, so warm in contrast to the sharp night air and he’s shaking, a fine trembling that has Clint pulling him closer. He’s a beautiful paradox: so much strength that’s tangled up with fear and vulnerability.  

“This is such a dumb idea,” Clint breathes into the space between them.

“I’m not allowed to have ideas,” Yasha replies, eyes opening to meet Clint’s. He keeps their eyes locked together as he catches Clint’s lower lip between his own.

“Yes you are,” Clint says firmly, as firmly as he can without being too loud.

“Will you be my idea?” Yasha’s mouth curves in a slow smile, almost challenging, and he’s teasing except for how he’s not.

“Hell yes,” Clint whispers, and his fingers curl into the straps of Yasha's uniform, pulling him back in.

  


* * *

 

Their night together ends as the first hints of light arrive on the horizon, the faintest line of orange bleeding into navy-black. They unwillingly separate, suddenly shy as the day arrives. Clint’s stomach feels all tied up in a knot and he wishes he could spend every night lying on his back with Yasha using him as a pillow, buried under their blankets, combing his fingers through Yasha’s hair as Yasha’s metal fingers draw lazy patterns on his stomach, hand slipped under Clint’s shirt.

Not the sort of experience he thought he’d find out here, but the sort of experience that make him decide that if anyone wants to separate them, they’ll have to prise Yasha out of his cold, dead hands. Crap, he can just imagine Natasha scolding him for falling in love too easily. Can just imagine him replying with a shrug and an _‘oops.’_

“See you later, I guess,” Clint says. Yasha is standing on the very edge of the roof, staring at the sunrise and not listening. “Hey, Yasha. _Yasha._ ”

Yasha turns his face slightly towards Clint, so Clint can see his profile, beautiful in the morning light. “James,” he says quietly. “When I’m American, I’m called James. I was, anyway, I think.”

“Okay,” Clint says, stepping up behind him, fingers brushing the small of his back. “James. Yasha. Whatever name you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Yasha nods, looking distant again. He chews at the inside of his lip and then turns, quickly kissing Clint before walking away and back down into the depths of the building. Clint watches him go, then slips back inside and back into his bed, eyes closing on thoughts and dreams of Yasha’s hands and mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

Clint wakes up to the sound of shouting. Angry Russian protests and the slamming of doors. It takes a moment for him to place where he is and what is going on and this his brain connects the dots.

Yasha. James. _Shit_.

He’s up and out of his bed without a second thought,  scrambling for the door and towards the commotion. It’s coming from the suit-and-ties’ room, the one that has always has the doors locked. The door is open now and Clint stumbles to a halt in the doorway, wide unbelieving eyes taking in a chair and machinery, wires and monitors and metal. Yasha is sitting in the chair - a nightmarish dentist-style contraption - and he’s surrounded by Rumlow, Johnson and Garcia.

“What the fuck?”

Rumlow’s head snaps around, even as the two suits-and-ties are busy pushing Yasha back. Rumlow looks murderously angry, ready to start knocking heads. He curses and then he’s striding over to Clint, trying to shove him bodily out of the door.

“Get the hell out of here.”

“What the hell is going on?” Clint asks, holding his ground, bending his knees and bracing all his weight against Rumlow. Shit, he should have bought his bow. “What are you doing to him?”

“What’s necessary,” Rumlow says, still gripping hold of Clint. He turns to look at the others. “Get him wiped, for fuck’s sake.”

“What do you mean, _wiped?_ Leave him alone!”

Despite Clint’s best efforts to go completely deadweight, Rumlow manages to shove him back against the wall. “Fuck’s sake, look at him! He’s a fucking mess. This is _mercy_ , Barton. They’ll put him through the chair and he won’t remember anything we don’t him need to.”

Clint can’t believe what he’s hearing. “This is _sick._ ”

“You knew,” Rumlow snaps. “We told you.”

“You didn’t tell me this, this is not okay, this is not right!” Clint feels his voice cracking as it rises to a shout.

“This is your fucking fault!” Rumlow shouts back. “If you hadn’t been nice to him then he wouldn’t be screwing things up because he’s all messed up and in love with you!”

The comparison doesn’t come to him until months later, and when it does he acknowledges there’s probably a lot a psychologist would say about it. Anyway, regardless of his levels of awareness about his actions, Clint responds to Rumlow in the same way he used to respond to Barney when Barney was being an utter ass; he punches Rumlow right in the face. Rumlow staggers back and Clint follows, using everything that Yasha and Nat have taught him, slamming Rumlow into the wall and then turning towards Yasha-

He doesn’t even realise that one of the suits-and-ties has a taser until he’s on the floor and in agony, unable to move. _Oh man, rookie move,_ he thinks weakly through the mush that is his electrified brain. He hears Yasha’s furious yell, more shouting, and then nothing.

  


* * *

Clint is woken by a bucket of ice-water, thrown through cell-door bars. He jolts awake, spluttering and gasping and in many, many degrees of pain.

“The hospitality in this place has gone seriously downhill,” he manages to say, moving all his extremities to check they’re attached. Yep, as far as he knows they are.

“That’s for the punch,” a bitter voice says. “The cell is because you were supposed to be one of us.”

Shaking from head to toe, Clint looks up to see Rumlow standing outside the tiny room he’s been locked in, a cupboard in the basement that’s been turned into a holding cell. His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s looking down at Clint like this mess is all his fault. He’s also got a pretty epic black eye, which Clint feels vindictively satisfied about.

“Where’s Yasha?” Clint asks, teeth chattering. He slowly pushes himself up, sitting back on his heels.

“In his room.”

“The fuck did you do to him?”

“Jesus, stop talking about him like he’s a person. He’s the Asset, remember?”

“What did you do to him?!” Clint yells.

“We reset him,” Rumlow says, and his eyes are glittering with spiteful darkness. “We fucking returned him to factory settings, hardware intact and ready for a new mission. He can’t do what he does, he can’t do his job if it’s all there, weighing on his mind. He’s perfect - look, he can kill, he can intimidate, he can do anything and he’s not all wrapped up with bullshit morality and guilt. He can’t do anything if he’s distracted by liking you-”

Clint lunges at him, reaching through the bars and trying to grab hold of Rumlow’s neck. He wants to _strangle_ him, wants to shake some sense into him. Rumlow steps back smartly, leaving Clint swiping at the air, reduced to clinging onto the bars.

“This isn’t right,” Clint says, pleading with Rumlow to see some goddamn sense. Where the hell is Thor, this guy needs cognitively recalibrating with Mjolnir. “Come on, you’ve got to know.”

“I know that one man is an easy price to pay for setting the world to right,” Rumlow says. “Why don’t _you_ get that?”

“Because this is not right!” Clint yells again. “He’s a man! He’s a person, and he doesn’t deserve this!”

Rumlow shakes his head. “You’re soft,” he says scornfully. “Jesus, it’s like talking to Rogers.”

Clint feels the words like a punch, a punch that hits dead centre into any positive inclinations he had about STRIKE. All the good times, every moment he spent with them, every time he was grateful to them for giving him a chance...now all of it just seems like trash built on a foundation of more trash.

 _He_ feels like trash for not seeing that it was trash.

“Well I’d rather be working with Rogers than you,” Clint snaps. “I thought STRIKE had some fucking morals.”

“We have morals,” Rumlow says coldly. “Just not your weak ones. You know, it’s a shame. I really thought you were one of us.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Clint says. “This is not happening while I’m still standing.”

Rumlow laughs at that, the sound cruel. “Five days in there with no water and you won’t be standing. Have fun, Trouble.”

He turns and walks away, leaving Clint shivering, alone and bitterly regretting the moment he even heard of the fucking STRIKE team.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The day turns into night. Clint is left alone, beyond shivering and feeling increasingly weak. He tries to escape, then tries shouting and yelling. For a while he hopes that Yasha will hear him, but then he remembers that Yasha has had his fucking mind wiped so probably won’t even remember who Clint is.

He stops shouting after that.

  


* * *

 

Day four and things are looking bad.

He’s finding hard to concentrate. His vision is blurry and his mouth so dry it feels swollen and he thinks that this is probably it. He’s going to die in a bolt-hole in Afghanistan, at the hands of the fucking STRIKE team. Oh god, it’s like what happened to Tony all over again; how the hell has he managed to be _the second Avenger_ to be held captive in Afghanistan? Shit. If only he were like one billionth as smart as Tony; the man could probably escape from this cell using nothing but sand and engineering magic.

But no, Clint is not Tony and he can’t engineer anything out of sand and he doesn’t even have his bow.

 _Should have listened to Fury,_ he thinks, blinking slowly. _Should have kept both eyes open._

 

* * *

 

 

He sits back against the wall, legs out in front of him and head tipped forwards, chin nearly touching his chest. Lifting his head takes a lot of effort. So does breathing, really, and he knows which one he’d rather be doing.

Noise outside his cell. Boots on the concrete. Rumlow, maybe?

“I’m so telling Fury on you,” he says, though each word makes his throat feel like he’s eating a bandsaw. “Or Hill. Hill’s scarier.”

_“Quiet.”_

The command is in Russian, and Clint knows Russian because Yasha taught him Russian, and Rumlow doesn’t know Russian.

Hope flickering in his chest, Clint makes himself look up. It’s Yasha, but the hope is extinguished like Rumlow threw the water over it instead of Clint, because Yasha is standing there with a pistol pointed at Clint between the bars. “Tell me how much Fury knows,” he says, voice hard and expressionless.

“What’re you doing?” Clint asks, blinking slowly. “Do you remember me?”

“You are to tell me what Fury knows,” Yasha says curtly. “You will comply. I have been told to make you comply.”

 _Well, shit,_ Clint thinks dully. They did wipe him after all. Screwed with his brain, made him forget about being all in love with Clint.

“I ain’t complying,” Clint says, wincing as he swallows. “I don’t care if you have ways of making me talk.”

The door to his cell is wrenched open with the scream of bending metal, and Clint looks up to see Yasha’s cold eyes fixed on him as he marches forwards. His stomach lurches and Yasha is going to kill him if he doesn’t _do something-_

_“ Olen, belyy, opanost.”_

The words are barely more than a croak but to Clint’s giddy relief it works; Yasha stops dead. He lowers the gun, immediately holstering it and then lowering his head in submission, before he blinks and seems to realise what he’s done. He looks up through his hair, confused.

“How do you know those codes?”

“Ha,” Clint says, though his eyes are fluttering closed again. He drops his hand, slumping back against the wall. “You can’t do jack shit now, can you?”

“How do you know those codes?” Yasha repeats, urgent and angry. “Tell me.”

“Can’t,” Clint mumbles. “Dying. Sorry.”

Things go a bit fuzzy after that. The room goes dim and a lot of stuff seems to happen around him, movement and talking and stuff that seems very, very far away. He thinks he’s actually hit the end of the road, that his body is giving up and holding up the white flag. Not a really epic way to die, but possibly better than dying by eating things that are past their expiry date, which is how Natasha always said he’d go.

Next thing he knows, he’s lying on his back with his head pillowed on a sturdy thigh, and a damp sponge is being pressed to his mouth. He’s got just about enough energy to suck on it, and does so gratefully. He goes to lift his hand to hold it but someone sharply says _‘nyet’_ and pushes his hand back down. He peers through lidded eyes to see there’s a cannula in the crook of his elbow, attached to an IV. Huh. Maybe dying isn’t on his agenda after all.

He passes out again, and wakes up feeling a lot more human. This time a straw is pushed between his lips, and a rough voice says, “Drink. Slow. Sip.”

He does as he’s told, the water tasting like the best thing ever. Screw champagne and vintage whiskey and Asgardian mead; water is clearly the nectar of the gods. All too soon it’s pulled away and he makes a noise of protest.

“Shush,” the rough voice says again. “Stay still.”

Clint blinks, and Yasha comes into view above him. He’s frowning down at Clint like somehow this mess is all Clint’s fault. Man, if people would stop blaming him for ten seconds, that would be grand. It’s not his fucking fault that STRIKE turned out to be total bastards.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Clint whispers. It’s all he can manage.

Yasha gives him another sip of water. “I was told to extract information about a target using whatever means necessary,” he says. “But then you used stand-down codes. Only handlers know the stand-down codes and I know procedure is to protect handlers whenever possible. But then I don’t understand why I was given orders to force you to give information.” The frown deepens. “Are you a test?”

Clint doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He’s not sure he could manage the latter, considering how dehydrated he is.

“No, not a test. I’m an Asset like you,” he says. “I...breached protocol. So they left me to die.”

Yasha reaches out, gently touches Clint’s cheek. “I know you.”

Clint nods. “We’re friends. We made out a few times. You stole me a granola bar.”

“I don’t have friends,” Yasha says, unsure. “Made out?”

“Kissing. Lots of it. I’m your bad idea, remember?” Clint says. “James.”

Yasha’s eyes go wide, almost comically so. “What,” he whispers, clearly stunned. “How - what? Is that-?”

“That’s you,” Clint says. “You’re James when you’re American.”

“James,” Yasha repeats, half in fear and half in wonder. He opens his mouth to say more but then there’s voices from upstairs, echoing on the concrete.

“Help me up,” Clint says, trying to push up onto his elbows. He can’t spend the rest of the day sprawled on his back between Yasha’s thighs, as tempting as it might seem. His boots scuff weakly against the concrete. “Come on.”

“No,” Yasha says. “You’re weak.”

“I’m fine,” Clint hisses. “Come on, they’re coming.”

“I will deal with it,” Yasha says curtly, and gets them both on their feet. “Stay put.”

“You can’t, the codes,” Clint says weakly protesting even as Yasha pulls him out the cell and props him against the wall outside, pushing his IV bag into his hands.

“The codes stop my current mission, which was to extract information from you,” Yasha says. “I am choosing a new mission.”

Clint barely has time to process the significance of that before there’s a furious yell, Miller and King appearing at the foot of the stairs. Yasha rounds on them and Clint can only fumble with his IV and try to stay upright as Yasha dispatches both men with scornful ease. Within thirty seconds they’re both shoved into the cell that Clint has just been liberated from, unconscious and drooling. Yasha bars the door again, twisting the metal out of shape so it’s stuck firmly in the doorway.

“That was terrifying and hot,” Clint says, and Yasha strides back over to him, hands on his shoulders and concern in his eyes.

“You're crazy,” he tells Clint. “What is happening?”

“There’s one more,” Clint says. “Rumlow.”

“Commander,” Yasha says, though he sounds unsure. “Current protocols say I’m not to hurt him.”

“Well I can,” Clint says darkly. “I owe him a serious beat-down.”

“You're weak,” Yasha says. “You won’t win.”

“He made me fucking trust him,” Clint bites out but he can’t go on. He’s too angry: at Rumlow, and Pierce, at _himself_ for blindly putting his faith in STRIKE. Yasha seems to get it; he nods curtly and steps back.

“I can contain him?”

“Yes,” Clint says immediately. “Do that.”

Yasha steals away like a shadow, somehow soundless despite his boots. Clint waits, and waits and waits, horrid anticipating curling in his gut. There isn’t a sound from upstairs, and foreboding weighs heavy on his shoulders. What is something has happened to Yasha? Rumlow isn’t an idiot by any means, and he’s quick and strong and clearly has no moral centre. What if-?

The questions stop as Yasha returns, looking grim. “He’s gone,” he tells Clint. “I can follow him, but I came back for you.”

“Fuck,” Clint curses. “Fucking fuckity fuck. He’s going to go straight back to Pierce, and oh man, Pierce is SHIELD, we need to be able to get to Fury before SHIELD gets to us.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Yasha admits, sounding ashamed of himself. “I’m outside of protocol.”

“I can get you somewhere safe,” Clint says. “You’ll have to trust me.”

Yasha - James - looks at him, strong and beautiful and vulnerable, and then he reaches out to hold onto Clint’s hand, and he nods.

 

* * *

 

 

When Clint turns up at Stark Tower with a soviet assassin in tow, things don’t exactly go as he planned. They’re both exhausted and dishevelled and Clint was banking on Tony just taking them in and putting some pretty hefty security measures in place so they can lie low and work things out. Hole up in an apartment and take it nice and slow, work out where Yasha has come from and fill in the gaps of his fragmented history.

Then of course, Captain America screws up that plan in spectacular fashion.

They step out of the elevator, Tony at their side and talking nineteen to the dozen about ghost-protocol and surveillance tech and plausible deniability. Steve, standing over by the main computer bank, looks up and promptly goes sheet-white, dropping the tablet computer in his hands to the floor.

_“Bucky?!”_

“What?” Clint and Tony say as one.

Yasha frowns. “Who the hell is Bucky?” he asks, and then the frown goes worried. “Wait - am I Bucky? That’s - wait. _Steve? ”_

Steve is across the room in two seconds flat, grabbing hold of Yasha’s upper arms, frantic and utterly shocked. “How,” he says faintly, and Yasha isn’t putting him in a headlock or reacting in any negative way at all to the manhandling, which is surprising. He just lets Steve grab hold of him, standing there dumbly for a moment before tentatively reaching up and holding onto Steve’s elbows.

“Bucky, how are you - what are you - how are you even alive?” Steve is trying to form coherent sentences, and Yasha is looking at him with a strange fearful sort of intensity.

“I know you,” he says to Steve. “You’re Steve. And I’m - I’m Bucky, right? James. James Barnes? Is that right?”

“Holy shit,” Tony says, and Clint stands there, momentarily stymied until the penny drops.

“Oh you have _got_ to be shitting me.”

 

* * *

 

 

No-one is shitting him, and within a few hours he learns that the technically non-existent ghost-assassin that he’s befriended - beboyfriended? Is that a thing? - is actually James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, best friend of Steve Rogers and apparently KIA in 1945.

“You’ve changed your name more times than I’ve changed my underwear,” he muses, lying on his back on the couch in Stark’s lounge, Yasha slash James slash Bucky lying atop him, his head on Clint’s chest. It’s the first moment of repose they’ve had since the revelations earlier, and Clint is glad to be able to just hold onto him for a moment or ten.

Yasha-James-Bucky lifts his head and gives him a flat look. “Three times in seventy years.”

“Four if you count _Asset_ as a name,” Clint points out.

“Oh, my bad,” Yasha-James-Bucky grumbles. “Four, that’s way better.”

Clint huffs out a laugh. “What name do you want to stick with?”

Yasha-James-Bucky thinks for a moment. He props his chin on Clint’s chest, lakewater eyes finding Clint’s.

“Can I be Bucky?”

“You be whoever you want to be,” Clint tells him. “Tony says he’ll get you a new identity. Or get you your old one back? I’m not sure how it works.”

Bucky - not Yasha anymore, not now he’s home - nods, satisfied. “My name is Bucky,” he says softly. “My name is Bucky, and I’m with you, and you’re still my idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky whispers. “I chose you. No-one else made me, no-one else decided.”

“I know,” Clint murmurs, pulling Bucky close. Bucky mumbles something in Russian,  and then his eyes are fluttering shut and he’s asleep in seconds.

 

 

* * *

 

The next day, Clint meets with a team of medics. He entertains them for a while until he works out that two of them are goddamn psychologists, and he asks Bucky to escort them out of their apartment.  The remaining medics quickly decide that he’s in no long-term danger from his incarceration and dehydration, and high-tail out of the room before Bucky can throw them out too.

It’s nice having a scary ex-soviet assassin as a boyfriend. Apart from the part where he hogs the blankets at night and steals Clint’s food when he’s not looking.

The one person that Bucky can’t throw out is Natasha. She turns up after the medics have fled, and she’s fucking livid. Of course she is. In fact she’s so angry that Bucky skulks away, muttering something about making Steve make him pancakes before hightailing it out of the room.

“Talk,” Natasha says, and Clint does as he’s told.

He tells her everything. The feeling left out, the being ignored, the betrayal when no-one would listen. He tells her about Pierce, about his bromance with Rumlow, about meeting Yasha. He tells her about how it went so wrong so quickly, how Rumlow let him down. When Clint gets to the part of his story where Rumlow left him in the basement cell, she stands up and makes towards the door.

Grabbing her wrist, Clint pulls her back down to sit next to him. “I know,” he says. “I know.”

He’s still angry, yeah, but a part of him is also mourning Rumlow. They had been friends after all. It had been real to Clint.

“I'm going to kill him for hurting you,” Natasha says.

“No killing,” Clint smiles crookedly. “I've talked Bucky down from murder already.”

Silence falls. Clint still feels the gap between them but it's less of a gulf now. Maybe downgraded to a ravine. A crack in the sidewalk.

He looks down, away from her gaze. He feels so small. “I’m sorry I left you for STRIKE.”

She reaches out for him, takes his hand. “I'm sorry we made you feel like you weren't welcome.”

God, that’s good to hear. “I wasn't broken, Nat. You guys treated me like I was.”

She nods at that, smiling sadly. “What happened with Loki...we worried,” she tells him, and then she takes a breath and moves on. “So, is you bringing Bucky back some sort of point you're proving? He's told us about what STRIKE did to him. What they did to his mind.”

“No,” Clint says, taken aback. “Not proving a point. Though he does help argue my case, huh?”

“He's a little more broken than you were,” Natasha says, and Clint doesn’t think he can argue with that, really. “Why did you bring him back? I mean, why would you trust him after what Rumlow did? After what _we_ did to you.”

 _Because I think I fell in love with him a little bit?_ Clint thinks. He shrugs. “He followed me. Baby duckling.”

“Sure,” Natasha says with her sphinx smile, and Clint can tell she doesn’t believe him, not one bit.

 

* * *

 

 

When Clint wanders into the secret meeting fifteen minutes late with a Starbucks in one hand and a Bucky in the other, Fury just rolls his eye and gestures for him to shut the door behind him. Bucky does, hauling the garage slash warehouse door closed and then taking position in front of it, like the world’s most dangerous bouncer.

“Nice of you to join us,” Fury says.

“You’re late,” Hill says, and Clint raises his coffee cup to her.

“I had to get coffee, and Bucky made me walk about five different routes to get here,” Clint says. Bucky just shrugs, not remotely apologetic. Clint shakes his head at him, and then turns back to the rest of the team. They’re all looking at him and he suddenly feels like a bug under a microscope, or a performer in a spotlight.

Tony raises his own cup of coffee at him, grinning. He and Bruce are perched on the trunk of a discombobulated vintage mustang, though Bruce is looking a lot more serious. Next to them, Steve is leaning back against the car and frowning thoughtfully. Fury and Hill are standing side-by-side over near a workbench, clearly involved but not in charge. Natasha is cross legged on the roof of a nearby Cadillac, and a tall black man is standing nearby, arms folded over his chest. When Clint eyes him warily, Tony explains that the man is called Sam Wilson, and he is a) a stray that Steve picked up in DC and b) a lunatic because he’s befriended Steve and wants to help. Natasha vouches for the man, and also tells Clint that Thor is hopefully incoming, if the message gets to him in time.

“We have work to do,” Steve says quietly but firmly. “SHIELD is compromised. It’s gonna be messy. It’s gonna be dangerous. But we have to stand up and do the right thing, because I don’t think we can count on anyone else.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Tony lifts his hand and see-saws it.  “Eight out of ten,” he remarks. “I feel your conviction, but I maybe need some more oomph, you know? I wanna be convinced.”

“Don’t get him started,” the new guy says. “He’ll be harder to stop the more you get him going.”

“I don’t know,” Natasha says with a sly smile. “I quite like a good motivational speech.”

“Laugh it up,” Steve says, and then he turns to Fury. “Anything to add?”

Fury holds out his hand and Hill immediately passes him a cardboard wallet, bursting with paperwork. “Up to date psychological evaluations,” he says. “For Barnes and Barton.”

“Alright, I’ll take them,” Steve says, and walks over to take the folder out of Fury’s hands, thumbing open the front cover.

“Whoa!” Clint says indignantly. “Are we really still dicking around with psych evaluations?! We threw those guys out so they’re probably incomplete.”

“Incompletely but not inconclusive. Yours is a lot worse than last time,” Hill informs him. “Apparently Rumlow did a number on you.”

“Bite me, lady,” Clint says, as Bucky scowls at her. “Steve, I’m fine.”

“I know,” Steve says, unconcerned. Still apparently engrossed with reading the page in front of him, he steps over to Natasha and holds his hand out. Natasha slips her hand into her pocket and tosses him a clipper lighter which he catches without looking, and then Steve promptly lights the corner of the file on fire.

“I seem to have misplaced my paperwork,” Steve says as the pages catch. He watches for a moment and then drops the evaluations to the floor, letting them burn on. “So I’ll have to just trust my own judgment, thank you. And my judgement says Clint and Bucky are both good men, who deserve a chance to kick the ass of the people who wronged them. Luckily, that coincides with my plan to dismantle SHIELD and save the world. Any objections?”

There’s a chorus of various forms of _‘no’_ from around the room. Satisfied, Steve turns to Clint.

“You with us?”

Clint feels all eyes on him, understands what Steve is asking. He looks over his shoulder at Bucky who inclines his head in a single nod. They’ve had this conversation already, quiet murmurs in the early hours of the morning about where to go from here, how to regain what they’ve both lost at the hands of STRIKE.

Clint turns back to Steve. “If you’ll have me, I’m with you.”

“Sold,” Steve says and then pushes himself up from the car. “Alright Avengers, suit up. We’re starting now. Anyone got any bright ideas about how to save the world, let’s hear them.”

Clint meets Bucky’s eyes, and Bucky’s mouth hitches in a smile, private smile. “Yeah,” Clint says, and he turns back to Steve and steps forwards. Steps forwards as part of the team, steps forwards as an Avenger again.

“Ideas?” he says, and he grins as Bucky walks forwards to stand next to him. “Yeah, we got a few.”

 


End file.
